What is Buddha?

Good morning, good morning, good morning, what a delightful day to be alive.

That’s that’s something that’s just so fundamental to Zen that sometimes I just kind of like to take it for granted that everyone understands that the starting point of Zen is aliveness.

And I spend a lot of time talking about, okay, what does aliveness look like in our lives?

Because, you know, really, if it’s not practical, if it’s not pragmatic, then I ain’t got time for it.

And that’s kind of where I’m at in my life, I’m not particularly interested in things that are purely metaphysical or philosophical, if it doesn’t help me live my life, I don’t care.

But the basis of this, the basis of all the practical things that we talk about in here is aliveness, right?

That’s what Buddha is.

Buddha is the fundamental aliveness of the universe.

It is, in physical terms, the quanta, the intertangling vibration at the substratum of all of existence, when we sit deeply into meditation, and our whole system comes alive.

That’s Buddha, that’s touching Buddha, okay?

And so the whole process of being Buddha begins and ends with being alive, okay?

To touch divinity is to touch the very quality of our creative, self-sustaining awareness of life, right?

And that’s kind of hard to understand, in the sense that there’s lots of things that we don’t like about life.

There’s lots of things about being alive that kind of suck, right?

Physical pain, emotional pain, financial stress, relational stress, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it goes on and on and on.

There’s all these human elements that we want to say are somehow different than the divine, different than aliveness.

And Zen, compassion in Zen, is fundamentally recognizing that that’s all just being alive.

There’s nothing we need to get rid of, there’s nothing that we need to change.

Everything is exactly the way that it has to be, because of the very process of aliveness happening.

And aliveness happens in all sorts of really interesting ways, some of which, from a relative frame, as I just mentioned, are very unpleasant, okay?

And so a lot of times we talk about what does it mean to face those unpleasant things, and how do we do that, and what’s the difference between sympathy and compassion, and how do we show up in the world, and how do we tackle big issues like the ethical nature of warfare, and when is it okay to be violent, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

We get into the weeds of dealing with life, and we ask ourselves, what does aliveness demand of us in facing these situations?

And we might get to some of that today, too, because frankly, that’s where the rubber meets the road.

But the prerequisite is that you can recognize Buddha, this divine life, this light in a dynamic interplay, manifesting its truth, right?

And if you can’t currently experience that as part of your daily lived life, then there’s a couple things to do.

One is to recognize you’re not at that stage of your practice.

Fine, that’s fine.

Focus on the part where you get to touch the divine within you, and let that be the emphasis of your spiritual life, right?

And then you just do the best you can everywhere else, just doing the best you can, right?

That’s fine, do the best you can, but have the focus of your spiritual life be finding God within, finding the divine within, developing your personal relationship to the aliveness of the cosmos that’s constantly flowing through you and supporting you, right?

And then, once you are tapped in and your battery is charged to 100%, you’re just vibrating with aliveness, and you know that everything is okay because you are fundamentally supported by the cosmos, then worry about how you show up in the world for everybody else.

Let’s put things in their appropriate order, and there will be a transitionary period in there, where sometimes you feel really in tune with the divine and really alive, and like you’re showing up in the flow, and then you’ll turn around and you’ll be a total douchebag.

And then sometimes you’ll go outside at 2.30 in the morning and tell people unpleasant things, or play music at 2.30 in the morning.

Right, exactly.

I experienced that recently.

And that’s life, right?

We are the karma of the universe, and this is one of the things, too.

So we can prematurely determine that we are the karma of the universe, and we can step into that role without being fully tapped into the flux and flow of life and the fundamental okayness of all that is, and then we are just basically violently imposing our will on the rest of life, okay?

So if we are not tapped into the flux and flow of the harmony of life, we don’t get to have an opinion on other people from this tradition’s perspective, because we don’t know.

Our perspective is not big enough to judge others, right?

And then we tap in, and that’s when we start to be like, you know what?

In terms of the grand harmony of things, this correction needs to happen.

That correction needs to happen.

This adjustment needs made in myself.

This is no longer okay, this is okay, right?

And then we start to make adjustments based on the pain points that we perceive in the world.

We are karma, okay?

If you’re waiting for some other being to enact retribution in the world, then you’ve missed the point of Buddhism, which says that God functions as us.

We are the function of the divine.

We are the function of the divine.

The quality that allows us to have intention and perform that function is also the quality that separates us from the divine, this miraculous human consciousness.

It becomes confused, and it’s separation.

This is the fall.

This is the demi-urge, right?

And so we have to return first, restore ourselves from the fall, restore the connection of the human with the divine, and then they function together as wisdom and compassion.

Wisdom being the truth that everything is changing and everything is okay.

Compassion being that, well, everything is okay, it’s kind of a middle point there between the two.

Compassion is kind of like the harmonious interchange of life and its interdependency.

And wisdom is the discreet, impermanent nature of life.

These two together allow us to sit in equanimity, which says, it’s all okay.

And then from that place, we get to go, ah, this needs to change.

So trick question, is it really that place?

We’ve been paying attention, can we even say that it’s that place?

As a general statement, no.

No, right.

Because there’s just this place.

That’s right.

And then the next place is this place, this place.

We’re always in this place.

We are always touched into life, whether we see it or not, whether we feel it or not.

We’re always looking at us being that, as being other, and we are fundamentally separating ourselves from the foundation that supports us as we move through this human experience.

This is why it’s so critical to touch into this first.

What is this, this, this?

And only then trust yourself to deal with whatever we perceive as that.

Less than that.

Okay, there’s my 10-minute tirade on Zen.

And that leaves us about 15 minutes or so to have an open forum discussion, whether it’s inspired by what I just said or completely separate.

Thank you all.

I will resume my normal silent self.

So, all of this prepares you to be within yourself, obviously, then, before you worry about somebody else.

And if you don’t, and you know you found yourself, how?

Oh, you know.

Okay, it’s just, it’s an internal awareness.

Yeah, there’s a certain clarity that arises when we have found the divinity within ourselves, and that exposes to us the splinters in our own eye that become so apparent that we have to deal with those first, before we worry about the log in our neighbor’s eye.

To paraphrase the Bible.

And what happens as an internal experience of self-inquiry, that there’s a moment where all doubt, all insecurity, all confusion, all inner conflict disappears.

And in that space arises a knowledge of self-love, arises a knowledge of this is what is right.

This is what is necessary.

And all of our human arguments and justifications and fears are there in the background, but they are no longer predominant.

There’s no longer a chaotic symphony of conflicting opinions.

There is just this arising clarity based on, for me, love.

Some people, it’s peace.

Some people, it’s truth.

Some people, it’s whatever.

But to truly be loving in the most holistic way possible, this is what has to happen.

And the human can go, no, I don’t want to.

In fact, it often does.

But it cannot deny the voice that says, this is what is necessary.

This is the work you have to do on yourself.

This is the fear that you have to tackle.

These are the adjustments you have to make in your life.

This is how you must live, period.

And that knowing arises with such force that you can only know it as big as self, that interplay where God speaks directly to us.

Some call it the voice of our holy and guardian angel.

Some call it buddhi, awakened mind.

It’s all the same thing, with certain cosmological nuances.

And see, when you put it like that, it sounds so simple.

But it’s not.

It just isn’t.

But it’s not.

It just isn’t.

Yes, done.

Nope.

At least not for me.

For me, personally, it’s daily.

And I think that’s just where I’m at.

Maybe that’s where I’ll stay forever.

I don’t know.

It’s just a constant reminder to do better.

So that gives me, if I center myself in that place and go, okay, regardless of what it is, is it family, is it social interactions, is it parenting, is it what happened?

Is it four in the morning and my child has asked for water for the 28th time?

Do I get frustrated, yell, just don’t sleep?

Or do I go, something is wrong, something, you know, he’s got whatever it is.

Take a breath, pause.

Okay.

Buddy, what’s going on?

Here’s this, here’s that.

And it’s trying to suck a little less with each, you know, with each passing moment.

And it’s not, I personally, and like I said, I may never, I haven’t had that, you know, whatever you want to call it, you know, whether you call it enlightenment, epiphany, what have you, I haven’t had an instantaneous, now I get it.

But I have changed perspective into, maybe if you chip away little by little by little by little by little and you work at it just a little bit more each day, even if I never hit that point, I’m still better than I was back here.

Sure.

And so either way that you look at it, in that case, it’s positive.

So the fun is those two aren’t different.

Right.

Fair enough.

So it’s a constant process of letting old shit go.

Pretty much.

Not quite.

No?

Not quite.

It’s not just about letting go.

It’s about what to do with it.

So the past is here to inform our future.

And if we let it go, then we’re losing the information.

So we can’t let it go until it’s fully processed and integrated so that it can inform our future activity.

Otherwise, we just keep looping around the same mistakes, the same situations over and over and over and over again.

So what does this mean?

What do I have to do?

Who will I be?

And then you set your sights on who I will be and everything else, you fall away.

And then you can let it go.

Right.

So if you let it go prematurely and you don’t get the information out of it, then you are failing to adjust to the lessons that life is giving you.

Okay.

I’d love to intentionally open space for our online folks, because it’s easy for us to get on a tear here in the Zendo and not let room.

Yeah, I have been hearing the importance of discipline and intentionality.

And once that intentionality is known, then I’ve also experienced the need for the awareness and the wisdom to recognize when that intentionality needs to shift a little bit.

It’s a constant, constant shifting, as opposed to opening up.

It’s a constant shifting, as opposed to, this is it, straight ahead, nothing else.

And you just run into a wall.

Go ahead.

Yes, and, right?

So it’s like, once you pick your step, this is like a one step at a time thing, right?

So you pick your step and you’re like, I’m going to go that way.

And you make that step, right?

Like you make that step.

You don’t make that step thinking about going that way.

You walk back, right?

And then you make that step.

And then on your next step, before your next step, you might be like, 180.

So it’s like this whole life cycle happens with every instant of our life, where it’s like a seed sprouts, grows, bears fruit, withers, decays, plants a new seed.

And it’s like, at that moment, we get to decide, do we nurture that seed or do we pull that weed?

Right?

And so it is a constant inquiry of this life cycle.

But each step, like, if you’re going to take that step, because this is the clarity of the moment, boom, then any doubt, anything else must fall away.

Or else you don’t know.

You don’t truly know.

And sometimes we can’t.

And sometimes we just have to step into the unknown, which is the beauty of the not knowing mantra, right?

And we can never really know.

But even when we don’t know, once we decide what we’re going to do, we do it.

And then we reassess, right?

And it’s this process that if we can really get into it, so that we’re truly unified when we take our step, that we can actually experience life.

Because we aren’t diffuse.

Our light is concentrated within us.

And our light is moving toward the intention we set ourselves, which is, you know, best set by some hyper value, right?

Some overarching principle that can take many different forms.

But we don’t have to talk about that right now.

And then we do that thing.

And then we determine what course adjustments we need to make once we have the new information in the next cycle.

And it’s a delicate balance.

Only if we think in terms of a long piece of linear time.

If we think in instantaneous moments, then it’s not a delicate balance at all.

Because it’s just right now I’m deciding.

I’ve decided this is what I do.

Now that I’ve done this, what feedback have I received?

What do I need to do now?

I do this.

I do that with my whole being.

What feedback have I received?

What do I need to do now?

I do this with my whole being, right?

So we never have to think more than we need to think.

I think I was responding to what you were saying.

Did I get off?

Exactly.

But you lost me on linear time though.

Oh, sorry.

It’s the one time.

My experience, there’s no such thing as linear time.

It’s a spiral time.

So that’s maybe where I get confused.

Well, you say that there is no linear time.

But then your expression of setting a path and then having to stay with it or running into a wall and having this awareness of what to change, that’s an expression of linear time.

It’s a segment.

It’s just a segment of a longer spiral.

Yeah.

So playing with that understanding and how short you make your segments is critical to opening us up to that adjustment process.

And so that would be the inquiry for how do I make this balance true?

How do I set disciplined intention while maintaining infinite flexibility for all of the potential outcomes?

That has to do with the segment of time that you relate to.

Okay.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

Anything coming up for Marie or Zenshan?

It’s a good conversation.

I’m glad you’re having it.

I don’t have any questions or comments about it at this time.

Okay.

And I don’t know if I want to talk or not.

I got time for one more comment or question before we do closing.

Check in if anyone has anything.

All right.

Well, then I’m going to just end with this idea that ties into Robin’s comments.

And one of the most essential paradoxes that’s not a paradox.

The end is in the beginning.

The cause is in the effect.

When you can collapse things into each other, recognize that the end is in the beginning and the cause is in the effect, then this all makes perfect sense.

So, have fun with that.

Chew on that for a second.

Yikes.

All right.

And from here, we go ahead and we do our closing check-in.