In his first talk given at Samish Island Fall Sesshin, Nomon Tim offers an expression of the dharma at Samish Island Fall sesshin. He asks the question: how do we practice with what's here? 

Stream audio:

Tim's talk notes:

I'm so very grateful that we're here in sesshin. That we're working together with such heart to create this immersive practice experience. I see and feel and realize things that I feel like I rarely see clearly in everyday life. And that feels vital and essential this week of all weeks.

The deep question of our practice, I feel, is how do we practice with this? Whatever this is. How does whatever's happening within us or outside of these little skin bags with big brains help us become better bodhisattvas?

Wherever you land in the political spectrum, how do you practice with what looks like others having a radically different view and understanding of what kind of person and what kinds of policies we should have in our government?

How do you practice with that?

It's easy to notice the unhelpful ways that come up: judgment, anger, disgust. What's wrong with those people? I find my mind imaging pathways in their brains to somehow explain what I don't understand.

Some of those are more charitable than others which does feel a bit better. Lately my favorite projection - which I'm certain is wise and correct - is to focus on the powerful need to be seen - the need to feel like a leaders "gets you" is just so powerful that all other concerns are secondary. It doesn't matter all that much what he says or does or might do in the face of the powerful feeling of connection and belonging. Of feeling seen. A nice little theory, I'm still fond of it a few day slater.

That that's all it is. They are all projections, assumptions, and beliefs.

At sesshin I feel more curiosity about whether such ideas and theories help particularly. And I don't think they are practicing with what's happening.

At sesshin I feel into this more deeply.

I feel the deep mix of motivations in that desire to understand - the potential there for joy and connection and for separation and deep suffering. And how essential wisdom and compassion are in all of this. I see something of the suffering and frustration of not "getting it" and also the relief of acceptance - this is how it is right now.

This is the country I call home. And I'm not going anywhere. I make my stand here - whatever that means. I can't not identify as an American. I was born here. I am a part of this.

And more importantly at sesshin my attention moves back from these habitual projections outward with all of their complex feelings and judgments.

My attention moves back to right here, right now. My attention moves to my every action of body, speech, and mind.

Who am I being right now? Am I being an arrogant being who knows better than those others? Am I being a judgmental being who sees what's wrong and wants others do it the "right" way, to think the "right" way, and yeah, for sure, to vote the "right way" according to me?

In sesshin I reconnect with what the words Mari shared last night called our "deepest concern." Who do we really want to be? Right now? What kind of person do you want to be? Right now?

And my heart starts to crack open again. I can be a kinder person. I can be a warmer person. I can be a more understanding and supportive person. I can be more curious person, remembering that I don't really know. I can be feel the natural motivation to help and give even if it pushes me out of my comfort zone.

And I can practice this right here, right now. This isn't about a donation I'll try to remember to make later to the food bank. That's essential too but it's about right now: how can I be a support to all right now? And how can I avoid being an obstacle to the learning and growth of others? Sometimes our helpfulness isn't that helpful, on?

I can notice a judgement starting to form over whatever someone's doing or saying at sesshin - right here in front of me - I can feel the constriction starting to happen in my heart and the furrowing of my brow - and that I'm empowered to go tell them what to do if I want to - breaking silence but if I buy my judgment thoughtlessly totally justified.

And I can smile and let it go.

Or even better being a sangha leader and teacher here I can make a mental note to bring it up later at an appropriate time and after I've thought about it some more. And probably some high percentage of those great helpful suggestions and ideas I'll let go of later anyway.

Plenty of wise insightful suggestions and corrections and teachings don't need to be said either.

We can give each other way more room than we think we can to figure it out for ourselves and we can give each other room for diversity of approach too.

Sesshin, to try to distill down this rambling exploration, helps reconnect with living through my heart more, and my head less.  I don't understand why this structure and way of being together does this so well but that's my experience. Today and again and again. And it's so interesting how I forget all of this in between sesshins. But I do. Luckily I have the habit of coming back to sesshin anyway.

Sesshin helps me remember what it feels like to live as a bodhisattva - as person who has dedicated his life to awakening.

And at sesshin I feel more clearly how sad it is when I drift way from this resolve.

How easily I can be internally lazy - a privileged guy with a pretty darn blessed life who will very likely be okay pretty much whatever happens. We can't know for sure but it's pretty darn likely I'll live out my days with good shelter, food security, great friends and family, and enough resources to pretty much do whatever I choose to do with my remaining days.

And at sesshin I feel how wondrous it is to arise from that shell. To stand here naked and exposed. To be humble. To be a beginner in love with you and this world.

That's a provisional answer I guess to how do I practice with this week's momentous events. It will change and evolve as we go. And I'm sure I'll soon see more layers and more blind spots and also more joy and deeper connection and more sorrow and pain and more love and more everything. It's all here. It's all here. can you feel it?

And the other thing sesshin somehow helps me remember is the deep truth of impermanence. How easily we belief in our ideas of what's going to happen. And maybe this week for many of us those ideas for many of us are pretty dark.

It's not that our idea of the future are total bokkom - they are based on past patterns we're observed.  And yet they are also just ideas and projections and never quite right. We really, really, really don't know what's going to happen. With ourselves. With our nation. With our planet.

The nature of reality is that the unexpected happens. How could it not? The only way that couldn't be true would be if we could correctly predict every aspect of the future - then the expected would be what's happening. We're good at filtering out for what we expected to try to reassure ourselves that that we live in a predictable universe - we are pretty good at ignoring or denying evidence that doesn't match up to our theories and predictions.

And how much of our suffering and paralysis comes from believing our predictions.

And of course it's not good to ignore our fears either. It's complicated. But feeding them sure doesn't help.

How do you practice with what is? How can you even know what is? We definitely can't know what will be.

Our Buddhist ancestors had these same challenges.

Dōgen told the monks at Eiheiji one time:

"The ancestral teachers have this skillful means. In the seventh tumble the eighth downfall is still not finished. Zen sitting cushions and monks' staffs at this time become lotuses in the fire" 

Tumbles and downfalls are the disasters in the human world. Dōgen lived in a Japan full of strongmen leaders and repression. Luckily he had the support of a regional Samurai but likely he was forced out of the capital. Good and bad: he remained beholden to Lord Hatano Yoshishige who provided the land and most of the construction funding for Dōgen's temple in the mountains, Eiheiji. Years later when summoned to the secondary capital of Kamakura to teach Hatano and his family, Dōgen dutifully went and stayed for 7 months before he could go back home to Eiheiji. I don't think Hatano would have taken no for an answer.

Scholars think the Eiheiji community was pretty upset at being left for those 7 months.

Plus all educated Buddhist leaders would know about the great repressions of Buddhism in Chinese history - the so called Three Disasters of Wu because in each of these three dark periods of Buddhists in China the emperor at the time had the character "Wu" in his name. In the 5th, 6th, and 9th centuries there were mass persecutions of Buddhism with monks killed or drummed out of the temples and monasteries to be laborer and farmers. Issues of power and prejudice "no foreign religions allows" and issues of wealth and resources. Copper Buddha statues melted down because the government needed the copper to make coins for example. Not that the Buddhist institutions were always full of blameless humble monks. These are human organizations.

We have plenty to worry about but probably it's not reasonable to worry that the National Guard or the Federal Marshalls are on their way to shut down sesshin.

As we embrace not knowing can we also see that Buddha fields are right at hand.

Here's a koan Dogen appreciated and wrote a verse in response to:

Zen Master Da'an asked Baizhang, "this student yeans to understand Buddha. What is it?"

Baizhang said, "You are like one searching for the ox while riding the ox."

Da'an said, "How is it after understanding?"

Baizhang said, it's like the person returning home riding an ox."

Da'an said, "I am not clear. How can I protect and care for it from beginning to end?"

Baizhang said, "It is like an oxherd holding up a staff to watch that the ox doesn't disturb people's seedlings."

From then on Da'an grasped the meaning.

Here's Dōgen's verse of appreciation for this koan:

Even with morning mist thin, his robe gets damp
Where the evening sun sets, birds fly on distant mountains
In this painting, an oxherd returns home amid evening radiance,
Singing of plum blossoms and the moon above the snow.

Could you feel the aliveness of this place when we emerged after sitting this morning. After being in our quiet - well quiet plus the thrumming old furnace keeping us warm - place of zazen this morning my eyes and heart flew open as I heard to bird communities singing to us.

My comparing mind wasn't far behind. I know enough ecology to know that as wonderful as the biotic community is here as Samish it was much richer because our European ancestors plowed up fields and cut down trees and diked the river. And even now all this lawn: handy for walking over but ecologically very low value.

And at the same time it's totally wonderful here. And it's totally wonderful everywhere. We are riding the ox always how silly our discontent is. We are Buddhas always.

I'll close with another short Dharma talk by Dōgen - this was when he was 50 years old, 6 years into the experiment of running Eiheiji in the style of the monasteries he practiced in in China. And unknown to him the time just 3 years before his death.

A Timeless Appeal to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for Clear Skies 379. Dharma Hall Discourse in Supplication for Clear Skies on the Tenth Day of the Sixth Month [1250] Last year and this year, through spring, summer, autumn, and winter, below the heavens the rains have fallen without cease. The whole populace laments as the five grains do not ripen. Now elder Eihei, for the sake of saving our land from lamentation, will again make supplications by lifting up the Dharma hall discourse praying for clear skies that was given by my late teacher Tiantong [Rujing] when he resided at Qingliang Temple. What is the reason? What can we do if the Buddha Dharma does not relieve the suffering of human and heavenly beings? Great assembly, do you clearly understand Eihei’s intention?

When my late teacher had not yet given a Dharma hall discourse, all buddhas and ancestors had not yet given a Dharma hall discourse. When my late teacher gave a Dharma hall discourse, all buddhas of the three times, the ancestral teachers of the six generations, and all nostrils and the ten thousand eyeballs [of all teachers], at the same time all gave a Dharma hall discourse. They could not have been an hour earlier, or half an hour later. Today’s Dharma hall discourse by Eihei is also like this.

After a pause Dogen said: Without ceasing, one, two, and three raindrops, drop after drop fall continuously morning to night, transformed into torrents, so that we can do nothing. 52 The winds and waves overflow throughout the mountains, rivers, and the great earth.

[Tiantong Rujing] sneezed once and said, “Before one sneeze of this patch-robed monk is finished, the clouds part and the sun appears.”

[Tiantong Rujing] raised his whisk and said, “Great assembly, look here. The bright clear sky swallows the eight directions. If the waters continue to fall as before, all the houses will float away to the country of demons. 53 Make prostrations to ⁄›kyamuni; take refuge in Maitreya. Capable of saving the world from its sufferings, wondrous wisdom power of AvalokiteŸvara, I call on you.”

Such love there. Love for his teacher. Love for his temple. Love from the monks he was speaking to.

How do you practice with it? Whatever it is? How do we make all of life's ups and downs into the way, into the path. How do we stay vital and alive.

Please feel into this dear bodhisattvas. It's not too grandiose to say that the world needs us. I absolutely does. But here's the thing: we need this world too. We need it just as it is. It's the perfect field of practice. Just what we need for awakening.