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Not long ago it was spring and now it is becoming summer. From
spreading roots, shoots and stems have appeared and now countless
buds burst forth and blossom and then fall to the ground. In the
monastery garden, the ferns have unfolded and now tower above
spreading moss. Skunks and squirrels and hundreds of finches have
come to drink from the stream along with a mother racoon and her
young who also stopped by the front porch to investigate the Buddha
rupa and offering bowl. And the Engleman ivy creeps up the building
with small fingers that attach themselves to the brickwork.
Not long ago, it was night and now its morning. Not long ago, we
began this Dharma Assembly and not too long from now, it will
already be over. Not too long from now, someone will be listening
to the recording of this Dharma Talk and I will have been dead for
years. It all happens so quickly. This happening, this activity,
this exertion of the reality of impermanence is all that is ever
going on. Our practice is the practice of opening to this reality
and realizing it as part of our own natures.
Virya, or exertion, is one of the six Paramitas. The Paramitas
describe aspects of being Awake to Reality that unfold through the
process of practice. You have to start off with some initial
element of, say, generosity, exertion, and so forth, but they
unfold dynamically as you actually practice. In the Mahayana schema
there are six Paramitas:
Dana Paramita: generosity
Sila Paramita: Integrity or discipline
Ksanti Paramita: Patience or flexibility
Virya Paramita: Exertion
Dhyana Paramita: Zazen or practice
Prajna Paramita: Radical insight or perfectly knowing emptiness
Of these six, exertion is the most important Paramita because
without exertion, nothing is going to happen. We will just sit
around instead of actually sitting and doing the practice of
realization.
There are many ways of understanding what virya is, such as “the
sustained effort to overcome laziness”; vitality; enthusiasm;
prowess and potency. But none of these understandings are adequate
to what we need to understand through and within our practice.
In the book, “The Pathless Path”, Zen Master Anzan Hoshin says
about virya:
…Exertion may well be the most crucial of the Paramitas that we
must develop. Without it, our practice can only be based on images
and ideas, expectations and concepts. Exertion is like the fine
steel of a sword blade. Without a strong blade, it does not matter
how sharp or well-honed the edge is, because the blade will snap
off at the handle as soon as it is drawn. In fact, without
exertion, the blade will just stay in the scabbard.
To truly sever the confusion and duality of the usual mind with
Manjusri's sword of Dhyana and Prajna we must be able to exert THIS
fully, holding nothing back. If we do not sever the duality and
strategies of the usual mind, then the seamless unity of the whole
moment will never be lived.
In order to practice beyond strategy we must first see our
strategies, not to follow them but to open beyond them. And so it
is of utmost importance to stay with the instructions we have been
given and refrain from making up and following our own version of
the practice. Not propagating means not propagating any thoughts,
feelings, theories and concepts about anything and this of course
applies to our practice as much as it does any other topic that
might come up while one is sitting. Thinking about practicing is
not practicing. If you have not been specifically told to do
something in your practice, then don’t do it. Ask about it if
something has caught your attention and you think it worth
discussing, but don’t experiment.
There are ten thousand strategies that we may attempt to apply
to our practice, but in the end they all fall apart. For instance,
hunkering down around the breath instead of using the breath as a
touchstone from which to open to the whole of experiencing will
just lead to more and more discursiveness. Students will also
sometimes “watch” themselves practicing, as though following
themselves around. If you follow yourself around, you will
inevitably get in your own way. Continuously “assessing” one’s
“progress” is another pitfall that frequently comes up. Letting
yourself passively drift into storylines and justifying this by
occasionally checking to see if you are still breathing or if the
wall is still there and then going straight back into the storyline
is not exerting yourself in your practice. Over and over again I
see students allowing themselves to fall into the same cesspools of
confusion and torpor again and again. Don’t just muck about in that
stuff. Don’t put your face in it. STAND UP from it. How do you do
that? Sit up straight, Shut up. Practice.
The Roshi continues,
Exertion must be clean, it must be free of strategies and
romantic notions about enlightenment and Buddhahood. There is no
use gritting your teeth and locking your legs in full lotus and
trying to pull yourself out of samsara and into
nirvana.
There is simply nowhere else that you can be than right here, in
this moment. Exertion does not imply some kind of spiritual
gymnastics or punching out self-image.
Exertion is surrendering completely into attentiveness again and
again. Exertion is being utterly straightforward with whatever
arises. Exertion is doing whatever needs to be done, and doing so
as completely as possible: taking a complete step, a complete
breath, touching completely, hearing completely. This is complete
and whole hearted practice.
Without this kind of exertion all of this would just be talk. We
could say, "Oh yeah, everything is Buddha Nature inhering within
itself. Don't struggle, just wake up." And we could go through the
motions, sit on the zafu and stare at the wall for the prescribed
number of minutes and bide our time. But what is time? Who is
this?
Zen is "the direct transmission outside words and letters,
pointing directly to the mind," pointing directly to the moment,
directly to just this.
The wall exerts itself completely and directly as the wall. No
doubts about it, nothing held back, nothing pushed forward. No
matter whether you call it a wall or not, the wall exerts itself
completely as what it is. This exertion is what the wall is.
Complete exertion is our practice, it is what practice is.
Cutting through blame and fame, hope and fear, here we are.
Breathing in, breathing out.
Without calling it samsara or nirvana, good or bad, self or
other, let us exert ourselves completely in just this. If you are
walking, walk; if you are talking, talk; if you are listening,
listen. In complete exertion, in whole-hearted practice, the Buddha
Dharma begins to exert itself. If we exert ourselves completely as
this breath, then this breath will begin to exert itself. Seeing
has its own intelligence, hearing has its own intelligence; you are
redundant. All struggle drops away and we discover that we don't
even have to try to know anything.
Everything is self-known without a knower, without a known.
Limitless Knowingness begins to dawn and continues to blaze as the
mandala in which enlightenment is continuously born.
This occurs nowhere else and in no other time than just this. So
let us exert ourselves completely, practice completely, realize the
Way completely.
Moment after moment, the world opened by practice extends in the
Ten Directions, exerting itself as sun and rain and wind. It exerts
itself as the pain in your knee and the pleasure of cool water on
your face on a hot summer day. It exerts itself as the creaking of
the floorboards on which you walk in kinhin. It exerts itself as
the empty toilet roll that needs changing, the printer that won’t
print, the bill that can’t be paid, and exerts itself as your job,
your family and your friends. It exerts itself right now and in
each moment as everything you experience. The world presents itself
as rich, playful, ever-changing details.
You are not separate from the exertion of the world and the
possibility of your Waking Up exists only because of the
possibility of your exertion. Unless you exert yourself, you’re not
really sitting, you are just sitting around. But if you’re pushing
and pulling you’re not sitting either. You are doing some weird
meditation trip.
When we are really practicing, we are not making anything
happen. We do not make the sensations happen or the colours and
forms and sounds happen. They are already present. All that we need
to do is let attention fall open to what is already the case.
Sensations and colours and forms and sounds already exert
themselves. When you release yourself into this exertion, you
release yourself into that which exerts itself as you and exerts
itself as the world.
In the teisho series, "Wild Time: Commentaries on Dogen zenji's
"Uji: Being Time", the Roshi says,
Everything arises here and now.
It is not that this arising is a matter of here plus now.
Here is now.
Now is here.
It is not a matter of time plus place equals our
experience.
It is now equals here equals is.
This is the exertion that you must release yourself into in
order to realize who you are.
Without the exertion of you releasing yourself, nothing is
realized, nothing is real.
All that you have are stories,
descriptions,
presumptions,
and
fixations.
By releasing yourself into That which unfolds itself as
everything,
which arises everywhere as everything, right now,
you realize this arising.
You are the realization of this arising.
Without the exertion that needs no one to do it,
that is done by no one at all
but is simply exertion exerting itself,
“Nothing would arise.”
We are open to the exertion of this moment only when we do not
hold ourselves back or get in our own way by following tendencies
and habits. Actually recognizing that a pattern is a pattern, that
a tendency is a tendency, can be difficult. We have used patterns
and tendencies to define ourselves and can sometimes find it
impossible to believe that we can be any other way. But as Roshi
says, “We are really only ourselves as we really are when we are
open to reality as it is.” And we can do this so easily. All that
we need to do is actually sit when we sit. Just sitting around just
won’t do it. Just sitting back and hoping it will all work out
won’t do it.
Open to this breath. Now. Now. I mean it. Now. I really really
mean it. Please? It’s not just for your own good. There is no good
that you can do without doing this. Look at this world. Read the
newspapers. Or just actually listen to the nasty stuff you tell
yourself about yourself. And about other people. It’s terrible. The
problem is that every body else is saying these terrible things to
themselves about themselves and every one else. And they’re out
there: driving cars, shooting guns, buying shoes, having babies,
ruling countries, writing code, playing music, cooking and eating
and all of the things that affect every one and every thing else in
the world. Someone has to do these things that doesn’t have such a
grudge about actually doing something clearly and completely and
well. So, please, exert yourself. Exert yourself by just stopping.
Stop that stuff. Just sit up straight. Now.
I mentioned before how quickly everything goes. Now this Dharma
Talk is almost finished. Spring comes and goes, summer comes and
goes, autumn comes and goes, winter comes and goes. You and I and
all of us come and go. So let go. Let go INTO this coming and
going. Exert yourself by not following yourself around and open to
the ten directions all around you.
Now I’ve finished talking. You should stop talking to yourselves
too. And so let’s all sit.
