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Heng Sure
March 27, 1978
When I was a graduate student it made sense to race like an ant in file from Monday to Sunday, cramming every minute with words and ideas, making classes, meeting deadlines, gobbling three meals a day, keeping up with world news, scanning the theatre openings in the New York times, jogging in the pre-dawn mist of the Berkeley hills, finishing the day with a pitcher of beer at the tavern, then falling asleep at the desk, head down in the dictionary. Nobody pointed out that this was a bitter life. With fine food, clothes, shelter, and compassions, I had every sense stuffed full, every need gratified. Why was I miserably unhappy and dissatisfied? Because,
"Enduring suffering ends suffering. Enjoying blessings exhausts blessings."
Living an undisciplined, bohemian life sounds like freedom, like cause for liberation of the spirit. Instead, the opposite is true. Glutting the senses inflames the mind of greed. Indulging in desires increases them.
The five colors confuse the eye, The five sounds dull the ear, The five tastes spoil the palate. Excess of hunting and chasing Makes minds go mad. Products that are hard to get Impede their owner's movements…. -- Tao Te Ching
Buddhism teaches the principle of reversal, turning back from what the mundane world enjoys and knowing contentment with our inner resources. Living the food life is knowing when to quit. Sufficiency is genuine wealth; "too much" is just another kind of poverty.
Lao Tzu said,
"To be content with what one has is to be rich."
An old monk once told us,
"No matter what it is, I feel I have enough of it already."
In the light of this proper view, my undisciplined life seems bitter indeed. Greed is poison, the spirit of life dies. Reducing desire and knowing contentment brings rare satisfaction, deep peace of mind.
Heng Ch'au
Monday
March 27, 1978
Morning clarity: bowing, meditating, even dreams all say the same thing-halfway. We are half-true, half-false, half-concentrated, half-scattered, half-clean, half-denied, half-vigorous, half-lazy.
The work of cultivation isn't always magic states and tingling visions. The real day-to day experience is hard work and a lot of patience. The job is small, difficult, and within. Every minute demands ultimate sincerity, concentration, and deep faith. Then by itself, when one least expects it, a little good news arrives. Whatever is supposed to happed, will. The less we interfere the easier it all flows:
"Be one of the way with no mind."
No mind means no false-thinking. When I get praised t start having confused thoughts. "Hey, I'm pretty good," I think, and them I start to get lazy. Someone once praised us in front of the master. The abbot immediately responded,
"One of the worse things for a cultivator is praise. Why? T hey will just dry up. They wont progress any think that they are so good (really ho stuff), and so there's no room for them to grow and improve. Praise any- one and they will put on a high hat and think they're special. I'm not that way. When I teach I don't give people high rats."
If you can keep to the traditional practices and live as the ancients lived, then there is certain to be a response. All difficulties arise from breaking the rules. Obstructions appear where there is laziness or impatience. The modern way is fast, instant, and fruitless. The ways of the sages are slow, tasteless, and even bitter, but the fruit is rare and sweet. How much you get is how much you work. There's no limit to either.
MEDITATION
A busy housewife said to us, " I need to make a quiet space to be alone in and just meditate, I'd guess you'd call it. I need to get away from the kids, my husband, the frantic world, and take stock of things. I like coming our here. The long drive and a chance to sit alone in the woods for a few minutes, makes me new again inside."
A school teacher commented, "I'd like to take a ling walk in the mountains and never come back."
The purpose of meditation is simply to rediscover our true self.
"People meditate in order to return to the root and go back to the source; to return to their original, inherent Buddhanature." -- Master Hua, "Ten Dharma Realms"
Meditation is a universal human need, like eating, sleeping and wearing clothes. We've met a lot of people who felt they share a common experience with our bowing when they backpacked, strolled by the sea, went for a walk alone in the woods, jogged, or took a bicycle ride at dawn. The methods vary, but the results are similar.
"It just clears things up somehow," is how one person described it. As we meditate, we expand the measure of our minds. While walking in the mountains or by the ocean, the world gets larger, consequently. The self gets smaller. The smaller our view of self, the smaller our problems.
The self eventually shrivels so small That one merges with the dharma realm it- Self, where there is,
"No big, no small,
No inside, no outside."