Waking
Photo by Mathieu Chirico
“As long as human beings have walked on this earth, there have always been those who’ve said, ‘This is not the way. This isn’t working, it’s never worked. So let me spend my life looking for another way. Let me spend my life living another way.”
In this talk, Zuisei speaks on waking up from our conditioned sleepwalking to find the innate wonder that life has to offer. Through watering seeds of practice and presence, we choose wakefulness and seek truth.
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.
Waking
Current born, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of the ocean. The jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, and the dark enters it. Born, flung, tugged from anywhere to anywhere, for in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower. The jellyfish hangs and sways. Pulses move slight and quick within it, as the vast diurnal pulses beat in the moon-driven sea. Hanging, swaying, pulsing, the most vulnerable and insubstantial creature, it has for its defense the power of the whole ocean, to which it has entrusted its being, its going, and its will.
But here rise the stubborn continents. The shelves of gravel and the cliffs of rock break from water boldly into air, that dry outer space of radiance and instability. What will the creature made all of sea-drift do on the dry sand of daylight? What will the mind do each morning waking?
This is the opening passage from a book called The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin. As I was writing this, I was thinking, you know, I quote her so often, I really should pay her royalties. There are writers like her, for me—like Murakami, like Annie Dillard—whose images arrest the mind, whose images go beyond the words to the very heart of our being and our non-being.
This question, “What will the mind do each morning, waking?” is a good question. It is an important question for us practitioners. It is a good question for everyone, actually. What will the mind—what will I do each morning waking? Even before that, we could ask, what is mind? What is morning? What is waking? Who is the one who wakes, the one who drifts and sways in that vast ocean of being, often so vulnerable? I don't know about insubstantial, but definitely vulnerable.
Imagine if you could dream into being reality—which is what the protagonist of this story can do. If he dreams that somebody has died, when he wakes, he finds that it has happened. One moment, the person was alive. In the next moment, they have been dead for a day, a hundred years, a thousand years. It is a parallel reality that begins the moment that he dreams. Except for the people who are present at the moment of that shifting of tracks, the new reality becomes the reality. That person, for the rest of us, never existed or died way back when.
He does not want this kind of power, and he does not know how to control it. He does not want to use it, and he tries to stop his dreams. He tries not having them, not dreaming. Substitute thinking for dreams. Think how many times we think, or we practice to stop our thoughts, thinking that that will be the way to freedom. It cannot be done. In desperation, and because he is really mandated to, as part of the story, he starts working with someone—a psychiatrist—who very quickly realizes the power that this man has and begins using it for his own gain, telling himself that it is really for the good of the world, that he is going to get rid of war, of overpopulation, of sickness. Except he is using another man's subconscious. He is using another man's subconscious to change reality. We cannot manage the subconscious. It is not rational, necessarily, and it is definitely not polite. The psychiatrist does not fare well in this story. The world actually does not fare particularly well.
The Illusion of Control: Bargaining with Reality
The fact is that we spend our lives, to a great extent, trying to manage reality. It will not cooperate. Perhaps, if we have been practicing, and we have been practicing for some time, we hear, we perhaps even understand experientially that this reality is also a dream. It will not really yield to our desires. The fact that we are largely unable to control it does not actually seem to stop us from trying.
You think of that very well-known quote by Shantideva: Why cover the whole world with leather when you can just cover your feet with leather? Just put sandals on your feet. What he is really referring to is protecting the mind. It is in the chapter on guarding introspection. He is really saying when you become the master of your mind—not in the sense of controlling, but in the sense of understanding deeply what mind is—you do not need to cover the world with leather.
There is a part of us that really believes that one day we will crack the code, that we will finally unveil the unifying principle of the universe, which, of course, includes our own workings, and that when we do so, our power will know no bounds, that we will eradicate illness and weakness and the mistakes of nature. You think of some of the work that has been done with genetics. That seems to be our propensity; our understanding of improvement is no mistake, no vulnerability, no weakness. We always move toward more and more control.
The more we create our lives in such a way to make us comfortable, we become less and less able to tolerate our discomfort. Our solution, if we see that that is the case, is just to control more.
This sense, this illusion, that we will ever arrive at a place where we will not hurt, where we might perhaps escape death—even—to see that really as progress, as the thing. For such an intelligent species, it is ironic how not smart we really can be. We persist in bargaining with reality, thinking that at some point, if I just get it right, maybe I have not been trying hard enough, at some point, we will get it right, and everything will be smooth.
Think of your Zazen once again. Maybe you are not practicing hard enough. That is why your mind is distracted. That is why you still get angry. That is why you still have petty thoughts. You need to try harder. At a larger scale, in our world, the answer to these mass shootings is just more guns so that when we are required to defend ourselves, we can do so. The answer to war is more war—bigger and more effective armies, deadlier weapons. The solution, the antidote to old age, is youth; of course, youth at any cost. The answer to illness is more aggressive medicine.
In our minds, the answer to an unwieldy mind is more control. Some part of us can see that it is not working—that we really oscillate between that fear, deep fear, and numbness; between hope and despair. Yet, often we are unable, unable to shift tracks, to do something different.
I read a quote—oh, I think it is Bell Hooks, but she was quoting somebody else—and that will to change, that is one of the strongest wills that we have, desires that we have: to change, and that is also our biggest fear. Right? We want it, but we fear it. We want, and we move toward it, and then we stop ourselves.
As long as human beings have walked this earth, there have always been those who have said, "This is not the way. This is not working. It has never worked. It will never work. There must be another way. I will spend my life looking for that way. I will spend my life living that other way."
Although we are creatures, as Le Guin says, we are not defenseless, because we have entrusted our being—hopefully we have entrusted our being—at a certain point, we do, entrusted to that infinite power of the ocean. If we take mind itself as that ocean, it is a metaphor that is frequently used in Buddhism, and it can be an image that is helpful.
Seeds of Consciousness and Choice
According to the Yogācāra school of Buddhism—one of the two main schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism, the other being Madhyamaka—Yogācāra is sometimes translated as the "mind-only" or "consciousness-only" school, Chittamatra. At the deepest level of consciousness, the bottom of the sea, there is the storehouse consciousness, the ālaya-vijñāna, in which every seed of every experience that has ever existed, and that will ever exist, is stored.
Perhaps it roughly corresponds with Jung's concept of the collective unconscious. Every single dharma, for us—every single phenomena, conditioned and unconditioned—is stored in this vast repository, this storehouse. All of these seeds are without self, without agency, without choice. They are just there, just as a seed, a regular seed. Some of these seeds will mature. Some will mature in me, some in you. They do so in accord with the Law of Affinity. Like meets like.
My particular aspirations, my wants, my actions—the ones I have chosen—will determine the result of further actions, which will determine the next action, and so on. A seed is always consistent; the fruit is always consistent with the seed.
For example, all of us at some point have watered, in some way, however small, the seed of affinity for the Dharma. Otherwise, we would not be sitting in this room. Something brought us to this place, this morning, twenty years ago, last month—something brought us here. We may not even understand what it is. In fact, at the beginning, we do not understand what it is. It is a feeling, an impulse. Somebody says something, they mention Zen Mountain Monastery, and you think, "I have been meaning to go to that place," and you decide to go. Why that day? Why that time? Who knows? But you do.
I have talked before about being on my own circuitous path. At one point, I was backpacking through Europe and staying at a hostel, somebody's house. I had been searching for some time for a different path, a different way, and I did not know what I was looking for. I just knew it had to be other than what I was doing, because that did not seem to be working anymore. On the bedside table, there was a book on Zen. I picked it up, I started reading, and I started sitting on my own. I continued, and some months later, I got off the bus, walked through the gate, and felt, "I am home."
I have often thought, what if that book on the bedside table had been the Bible, or a Peace Corps flyer, or Mad Magazine? Would I still be here? I would like to think I would, but I do not know. There were so many points along the way where I could have chosen otherwise. Where would I be then? What would my reality be?
It makes me really reflect. If at any point I have doubts or I am struggling with being here, I use that—the wonder of the fact that I am here, that I continue to be here, that I want to practice, that I have some basic ability to be able to do so, the willingness to do so—that I was at a point in my life when I first came, when I could practice. I was not committed in such a way that I could actually come into residency and explore this. It is wondrous to me and humbling.
At some point, I must have done something right to end up here, and to continue to be able to continue. I do not take it for granted.
Somebody was saying to me yesterday, the image was actually a good match—the image of a plant. If you do not water it, if you do not tend it, if you do not take care of it, and then you say, “Well, I did not really want the plant anyway. I am not sure if I want the plant,” you can never really know for sure. Is this the thing for me? If you do not commit, if you do not tend what is in front of you, it may be that it was not for you. Will you know for sure if you did not really try, if you did not really meet it?
Some of these seeds we inherit. We inherit from our family. We inherit from our country. We inherit because of our gender, our race, our age. Well, our age develops, but still, as individuals, we choose to tend certain seeds and not others. When something unwanted happens to me—which happens to all of us at some point in our lives—I can still choose how to respond, which seeds to water in response to this action, to this event.
Identifying the seeds, and then choosing which ones I will water, is practice. It is to very deliberately and carefully choose my actions, which will lead to other actions and other actions. This was one of the questions we took up yesterday. We know what practice is. I asked the group if they could explain it, if they could just write it in a sentence, what practice is, but explain it as if you were saying it to a five-year-old. It is very simple, no technical terms, just the essence.
One of the responses was: Practice is like emptying a box of Legos and organizing the pieces by color. I like that, because if you say this to a five-year-old, they get it—they understand what they are supposed to do. Although it seems very simple, and it cannot possibly encompass all of life, it is a very nice way to describe that process: identifying, “This is a blue piece, this is a red piece, this is a green piece. This one can only work for a wall, this one only for a wheel, this one only for something else.”
Much of our conflict comes from not understanding how to use the various pieces of our lives. We are trying to build a life without really understanding the material, the soil, the tools, or even feeling confident that we have the ability to sow a seed.
Thich Nhat Hanh, in his commentary on an important Yogācāra sutra, speaks of trusting the soil. The gardener cannot do the work of the soil; you need to trust the seeds, trust that they are there, trust that they will fruit, that they will bloom in the right way, if you do the work of tending them. They cannot just sprout by themselves.
From Self-Infatuation to Interbeing
The next level, the seventh consciousness, is Manas, which roughly corresponds to the ego or self from a Western perspective. It is like the ocean itself, but wind gets stirred up, a wave appears, it turns and looks at itself, and falls in love with itself. Manas is called “love of self.” It knows deep down that it is part of the ocean, this vast body of water, and that it is no different from all the other waves. Because of that self-infatuation, its vision becomes narrow, and it perceives everything that happens as happening to it, for it, or caused by it. Inevitably, that causes pain.
The activity of Manas is thinking, cognizing, clinging, discriminating, and it does so without pause. Even during sleep, Manas is working, saying, “This is me, that is you; this is mine, this is yours.” Pride, anger, jealousy, and ignorance all live within Manas. Because Manas is empty of self, just as the storehouse consciousness is, it is inherently liberated through practice.
A wave can realize its ocean nature. A Bodhisattva can realize that they are not just an individual walking around in their own little cocoon. It realizes itself, as Thich Nhat Hanh calls it, interbeing, and that is called the realm of the immovable. At this point, Manas’ grasp on the storehouse consciousness is released. The storehouse becomes the great mirror wisdom.
We are then able to perceive and use all those seeds without self-clinging. Manas becomes the wisdom of equality, where we realize our interdependence, our unity. We realize, “Yes, I am this one wave, and I am the ocean.”
This makes things easier, and it makes them harder. Easier because all the energy that was going into protecting that wave, keeping it contained, is freed up to work for the benefit of the whole ocean. All the energy of the ocean is now available to that wave.
It is harder because every time a wave gets hurt somewhere in the world, you feel it—you get hurt. Although it is difficult to be the ocean and feel that suffering, it is much harder to be a long wave: to know yourself fully, feel yourself alone. Your capacity to hold hurt and pain increases. Your capacity to water seeds that strengthen wisdom and compassion increases. Your wish to stop that hurt also becomes vast.
The top six consciousnesses are the six senses, which include mind. Mind, or consciousness, always operates with the other five. Without mind, we cannot process what we touch, see, hear, or feel. Like Manas, at first, the senses are obscured; they are often called the doors or windows of the senses. Initially, perception is muddied. We see something and think, “I see it as myself. Here I am, separate from what I see.”
Unlike Manas, mind consciousness can perceive things directly. In a sense, it can bypass the self to come directly into contact with suchness—things as they are. Most of the time, we are too distracted, moving too fast to make this direct contact. We speak too loudly, live in too much noise, and cannot break through surface awareness.
This is why, in Buddhism, the six senses are called thieves: they steal our awareness, our mindfulness, our concentration. They take us for a ride. As we careen down the hill of life, we cannot see the landscape, and we cannot feel ourselves either.
The practice, then, is to train mind consciousness to perceive correctly, without filters. This is done through mindfulness and clear comprehension. We train ourselves to see, hear, smell, touch, and taste directly. When we taste a bit of food, we actually taste the food—not our idea of it, not the conversation we are having, not our opinions about the person in front of us—but we are truly experiencing it.
We also learn to see what is in the way of direct perception. A big part of learning to discern which seeds to water is being in touch with what we truly want. We must be aware of what is most important to us.
The more we create our lives in such a way to make us comfortable, we become less and less able to tolerate our discomfort.
A recent cartoon in The New Yorker illustrated this: a thief in a house grabs a slew of things, hugging a stereo to his chest, asking, “Do I need this? Does this bring me joy?” This is actually a good question for all of us: Do I want this? Do I need this? Does this bring me joy? When there is no match between what we have and what we truly need or want, we experience dissatisfaction.
Most of the time, we plant a lemon seed but expect an apple tree, then become upset when it does not grow as expected. If we feel lonely and hurt, we might buy a pair of shoes to feel better. The Zappos box arrives, and we realize, “I really wanted love, but I have shoes.” There is a mismatch. Often, we do not even know what we truly wanted; we just acted, and then we are confused about why we feel unfulfilled.
All of yesterday’s work in the retreat on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness is about having a process to ask: What do I really want? What am I feeling right now? Does it match my desire? Am I responding skillfully, appropriately, accurately to this thought, this feeling, this sensation?
Being mindful is not enough. We must be fiercely honest. Often, as practitioners, if we want to be good practitioners, we experience a desire but tell ourselves, “I should not really have this. I should be past this now. I have been practicing for years, weeks, or months; I should not feel this anymore.” On top of the mismatch, we feel guilty or ashamed.
First, we must know: In a moment of Zazen, do I want to let go of my thoughts, or do I want to go with them? Do I want to sit here fantasizing? Do I want to be distracted because reality is too much? Do I want to go numb? Simply knowing gives us something to work with. When we pretend or deceive ourselves, the seeds do not have a chance to grow.
Zen teachers speak of honesty—or the practice of not deceiving ourselves—as the greatest ascetic practice. Chang Tzu, a fourth-century Chinese philosopher, tells a story: when a monkey trainer handed out acorns, he gave three in the morning and four at night. The monkeys were furious. He changed it to four in the morning and three at night, and the monkeys were delighted.
This illustrates what we often do: we bargain, thinking if we bargain enough, we will get what we want. Practicing body and mind, feelings and thoughts, means being willing to renounce self-deception. It means studying our actions and their consequences.
Frustration arises when there is a mismatch: we are not getting what we truly want. If we cannot hold this frustration, we might act destructively. We might not wield axes or bullets, but even small misdirected actions—watering seeds of jealousy or pleasure at someone else’s misfortune—have consequences. Every moment is an opportunity to ask: What do I want to water today? Is it the same as yesterday? Has it changed? Am I expecting an apple from a lemon?
Over time, this process becomes more natural. We do not have to be hyper-vigilant, though in some ways, the work becomes more subtle. Clarity is contained within delusion—they are not different seeds. There is not another “better” state of mind where we will be free. Our illness, confusion, and anger are exactly our health, clarity, and kindness. This is true, not later. It takes only a moment for something to transform, for a poison to become a virtue, through the mind.
What Truly Matters
When Manas is illuminated, mind consciousness and the other five sense consciousnesses are also illuminated. The storehouse consciousness becomes the great mirror wisdom. We see that your happiness is my happiness, and this creates an endless source of joy. If I am not feeling joy in a moment, I can receive it from you.
Just as a family of trees feeds each other through their roots, we support each other. When we say we draw inspiration and strength from the Sangha, it is not just psychological. It is literal. During Sesshin, we often speak of using the energy of the room, the Sangha, to support practice if someone is struggling. This is real, and it is why living in community is so powerful.
Shugen Sensei recently spoke to the residents about the Las Vegas shootings. He said we do not come together just because it is practical or seems like a good idea. We come together to water certain seeds, to ripen them into results, and to show the world that harmony is possible. Religious communities have been doing this for thousands of years, and while results have never been perfect, we persist because of the power of the Sangha—the virtue of harmony.
This is a fragment of a poem by Wisława Szymborska, No Title Required:
The tapestry of circumstance is intricate and dense,
and ants stitching in the grass, the grass sewn into the ground,
the pattern of a wave being needled by a twig.
So it happens that I am. Look—above me, a white butterfly flutters through the air on wings that are its own. A shadow skims through my hands that is none other than itself, no one else’s but its own.
When I see such things, I am no longer sure that what I consider important is truly more important than what is not.
Theravada teacher Somathera, in his translation and commentary on the Satipatthana Sutta, says: “When one is strongly mindful, one plants one’s consciousness deep in an object, like a firm post sunk in the ground, and withstands the tempestuous clamor of the extraneous by a sublime ignoring of non-essentials.”
I love that phrase—a sublime ignoring of non-essentials. We are turning our attention away from what is non-essential to what is. It is sublime because its purpose is to clear our mind for what is essential.
Szymborska also alludes to a question: how do we know what is truly important? Are the things I consider important really important? How can I know?
I would slightly adapt her imagery: above me, a butterfly flutters on my wings, and your shadow skims through my hands—the shadow that is the light of the world. As Chuang Tzu says: “One day I dreamt I was a butterfly. Then I woke, and there I was, myself again.”
Returning to Ursula K. Le Guin’s question: What will the creature made all of sea-drift do on the dry sand of daylight? What will the mind do? What will I do each morning waking?
These are not just literary questions—they are questions for practice, for life. We live in a world of complexity, circumstance, and chance, yet through practice, mindfulness, and honesty with ourselves, we can discern which seeds to water, how to respond skillfully, and how to live harmoniously with the vast ocean of being.
Waking, a dharma talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard. Audio podcast and transcript available.
Explore further
01 : The Monkey Trainer by Zhuangzi
02: View with a Grain of Sand by Wislawa Szymborska