Dharma Talks by Zen Master Senshin
March 2012:
On Integrating Practice
What’s the point of practice if isn’t integrated throughout daily life? The term integration is
not meant to suggest that we add a layer on to our life and then absorb it, but rather to touch
essence, over and over again, and to function from essence. In an abstract sense, practice
becomes the process of channelling the enormity of humanity, into each thing that we think,
do and say. As one experience propels us into the next, we experience that moment fully, with
whatever that moment brings, and we respond from our deepest mind to meet another’s
need. We do this by not dragging the past moment into the present moment or into the future
moment, but by living each moment with a clear understanding that this moment will not
last. Each of us knows for ourself how difficult this is to do – to touch one’s deepest and
hugest self, which is inseparable from all other being’s deepest and hugest self. How do we do
that? How do we after all, fulfil our great vow?
One of the most challenging aspects of practice is allowing our inherently integrated energy to
flow through us and to trust that as we learn to be true to ourselves, our thoughts, words and
deeds are assisting others, especially when it appears otherwise. It is not possible to be true to
yourself without being helpful to another. Consider for a moment something we have seen on
television or experienced in our own life, helplessly watching somebody in conflict, expressing
rage or hatred, and how destructive that can be, not only for that person, but for all beings
connected to that event. As each of us work towards realisation of total and complete essential
mind, and learn to live from that mysterious place, awareness and clarification of the source
and the expression of all mind states, including the violent ones, is critical in discovering who
we are and how we use our awareness to help others.
There is the traditional teaching that life is suffering. That we are human beings with a body
that suffers. Each of us has eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. Subsequently, we are
living beings with an enormous capacity for sensation – sensory input through the eyes, ears,
nose, tongue, and through every nerve ending in our body. Sensory input through the mind is
equally abundant. Each and every mental construct, memory, and emotional state is
experienced and recorded. As we experience smelling, tasting, touching, thinking, feeling, we
experience all of that through our subjective experience. We all experience things as only we
can experience them. No two people are going to experience the cool breeze in the room the
same way. We each interpret it in our own way. It is our own perception as we experience the
cool breeze just now. That subjective experience can get us into trouble when we hold on to an
experience and that pure experience becomes my experience. When my experience
establishes itself in my thinking as my experience, versus your experience, or my experience is
right and your experience is wrong, than conflict ensues. Certainly this dynamic is something
of which we are all familiar. But, how do we live with these subjective experiences and not get
stuck in them?
When we don’t look carefully at this unconscious way of being, the potential to create and recreate a set of conditions, behaviours, or even ideologies eventuate. We believe that this is
who I am and this is how it is. Attaching to my experience converts a pure experience into
something other than just a pure experience such as awareness of a breeze, and just feeling it.
In attachment, the idea of a breeze is born. Each of us would describe our experiences in
overlapping but slightly different ways, according to many factors, all of which are primarily
subjective. But, what does the last moment have to do with this moment? If we apply meaning
to our subjective experience then it becomes a pattern and we live from those subjective
patterns instead of experiencing the moment as it is. In experiencing the moment as it is,
there is the paradoxical effect of subjectivity, but also objectivity, or an awareness of what is
being experienced. So, in a sense, we own our pure experience of feeling a cooling breeze,
without claiming ownership of a breeze itself. In that way, we can truly understand and
appreciate air.
In objectivity, there is choice. There is the choice of taking responsibility to get buried in
subjective experiences, or not. In choosing how we interact with the information that we are
constantly flooded with, we are able to simply observe it. Watch it, feel it, smell it, taste it,
touch it, think it.
Observing phenomena as they come and go, they do not disrupt, do not touch, do not tint that
great big essential mind. This big perspective is possible throughout all interactions within
our internal and external experiences. The Diamond Sutra suggest that our deep mind can
only be clear and open when it does not depend on any concepts stimulated from within our
internal experience or from external phenomena. So, the challenge is to cultivate the process
of observation without getting sucked down into the gutter of our sensory world and spat out
into the sea of suffering. Getting sucked down into the gutter of sensation is not good or bad,
right nor wrong, however, the challenge remains: is it helping others? This is a key point.
So we come together in practice and we sit, chant, walk, question, and observe – honing our
essential skills in our training. When we sit down on a cushion and focus on breathing in and
breathing out, practice becomes more than an activity, but an actuality expressing our deepest
mind. Our subjective experiences give rise to the awareness of objective experiences – the
mouth is just going, the sound is coming forth, there is hearing other people, there is
movement, and there is an awareness of something other than one’s pure experience. As that
unknowable dimension widens and deepens, awareness of essence blossoms. One way to
deepen in one’s practice is to sit with a question. To question is to step out of one’s subjective
experience to understand other dimensions. The old habits, conditioning, and patterns that
are familiar, strain one’s capacity to engage in the moment. Use your koan, or question, as a
way of inquiring, as a way of taking you deeper into the moment through the question itself.
The question is a vehicle, which simultaneously focuses the subjective mind, while objectively
inviting an opening of bigger dimensions.
The question itself is not what's important. In the act of wondering, the conscious mind
stumbles, and as it stumbles a deeper mind state is jarred loose. The subconscious, as well as
the obscured unconscious, is just hovering in our peripheral awareness. Unlike the conscious
mind, these subtle mind states require deep listening to be heard. Conversely, it is easy to
know, as it is very easy to think – to line things up in the conscious rational mind. What is
more of a challenge is to listen to the subconscious, and other deeper mind states.
Questioning generates activity that releases these deeper mind states. As we learn to listen,
our experience expands. So instead of relying solely on the narrow rational mind, which of
course is necessary and has specific functions, let your ideas about your mind go. Let your
ideas about your body go. The consciousness functions to expand into one great huge
consciousness, which is interconnected with all consciousness. The artificial cycles of
subjective thinking and objective awareness melt away into integrated and vibrant
wholeness.
Information doesn’t need to be filtered through the conscious mind. It doesn’t need to be
added to or subtracted from. Direct perception is immediate and spontaneous understanding
of what is real. Direct perception can be generated by sitting with a question or can arise
through all or just one of the complex demands needed to live one’s life. You already know
that deep mind states don’t only come to awareness through meditation. However, we use
koans to deepen in our awareness of what is true and our perception of what is clear, so that
we can be open in our interactions with others. We sit with koans to make our lives and
relationships real.
When we begin sitting, it is completely natural to feel the onslaught of anxieties about this,
that, and the other things – feel how those anxieties weigh us down. For now, put all those
concerns aside and just sit and breathe. That which observes the day, our entire life, and the
lives of all beings starts to get shaken loose. The conscious mind cannot control the minutiae
of this process of inquiry and gets all jammed up as our deeper mind states, that are not
dependent on an observer nor that which is being observed, come into play. All that we are as
inherently integrated beings spontaneously arises in service to help others. All we need to do
is get out of our own way.
Use your questioning, use your koan to help you function with clarity in your daily life. As you
listen to somebody say something that you don’t really appreciate, ask yourself, I wonder
what this person is really trying to say? Often we take other’s words as literal or superficial, as
black and white. We make a judgement about what is said, and file it in our memory bank.
Challenge yourself to bring your practice into your workplace and into your home. Question
and listen only to what is essential. Discover the deeper dimensions of who you are. When we
open our mouth, speak with consideration as we do when we chant. Our chanting is the
practice of using our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind correctly. Our silent sitting is
the practice of understanding the empty source from which sound, smell, taste, touch, sight,
and concepts arise. When the 10,000 daily circumstances stimulate awareness of an
opportunity to help other, we use our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind to bring our
great vow to fruition.
As one person shifts in awareness or insight, all beings shift. This is a fundamental point in
physics. Whether people are aware of a shift or not is entirely a different point. As we consider
the world we live in, how great is the need now to awaken to what is true and clear? It is a
fundamental human need to be compassionate. When we discover that in ourself, then we can
help another to discover compassionate ways of being as well. But in order for that subtle but
pervasive rippling effect to be ignited, we have to first experience compassion, not an idea of
it. As we sit, use your koan to investigate who it is that is observing patterns, thoughts, and
feelings. What is at the edge of your awareness just now? What is it? I’m speaking about a
wordless picture that can be sensed, felt, or seen, and arises from a deep true place. Coaxing
awareness of our inner voice is one way of stepping out of the then, and into the now. Artists
and musicians understand this process very well. The creative process requires getting out of
our own way to manifest that which is unique and true.
In order to really let go, everyone needs to feel a sense of support. Find that in your seated
position. Listen as carefully to your question as you would when threading the sound of the
cicada through the eye of a needle. What appears? Observe and apply the discipline of
questioning to cut through created mirages, such as these. We experience the pressure of the
patterns of our life in countless ways. We are bigger than that – go beyond those patterns.
While the words of this talk create a pattern, the meaning of the words is patternless. When
the words are interpreted to mean this or that, another pattern is established and stored. Is it
possible to suspend all judgement and analysis, and just listen?
Each of you has decided to find out who you are. Please remember to continue the important
process of inquiry in your everyday life. As you develop concentration and continuously renew
your commitment to help all beings, your experience will expand and align with that
mysterious subtle mind twinkling with aliveness and creativity; and like the stars in the vast
dark sky, shine with unlimited brilliance.