Sokukoji Buddhist Temple Monastery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwHRi0oYaAk&t

How does renaming what we call negativity help us to work with that in a different way? How do we not fight with what’s arising? If we are functioning out of the bodhisattva vow, what do we do? Can not doing much look like activity? How can we meet someone where they’re at if it looks like they’re insane? What is your primary teaching? Sokuzan responds to these and other questions in this Mountains and Rivers talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wac2lvO2hI

We are always trying to protect, extend, and defend ourselves, or do something about me me me and my wonderful stuff. When you are being accused of something and fear getting pulled into others’ projections, meet people where they’re at. The paranoia is dependently arisen; you can’t get rid of it. You may need to relate to whatever arises in your mind stream or the apparent mind stream of others in a skillful way. It’s not about you, except when you’re training your mind – then it is about you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHi63k9uwTs

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Minding your own business doesn’t mean you shouldn’t step in and help when you see something terrible happening, but do it situationally. Don’t do anything unless you have to. It doesn’t mean that you ignore things; in fact, when you lead with your awareness, you are very attentive to everything going on. When the thinking process is in the service of ego and paranoia, the situation isn’t seen clearly. If you see the details of the situation through working with your awareness, then you can respond out of respect for what’s happening. The way to do this is to train your mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vXSAenmH-g

The ego, or what I might call the land baron, is the one who has territory, owns things, and puts things there in the mind stream or even the life stream if they have a chance. When something arises in the mind stream like anger, the self-centered mind claims it and wants to hang on to it. That property owner gets support as someone whose anger this is. You don’t have to claim any of that. You’re not looking for property. This is narcissism and it can be very subtle. The encouragement here is to see that whatever shows up is just that. When we approach it that way, the ego begins to starve. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WllkbZzRbp0

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Full intention here means not spending time looking for results. The spiritual path is not about results, or using the structure of the mundane path to evaluate your progress. It doesn’t mean you won’t notice change as you go along in your meditation practice. If you give your full attention to practicing, to training your mind by watching and receiving whatever is moving, you won’t spend time evaluating. It’s about the awareness of what’s moving in the life stream or mind stream, and not about grasping or manipulating it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fPgQWgGjSM

Rationalizing is abandoning what’s in front of us for why it makes sense or doesn’t work. It is caused by suffering and pain, by being mistreated or the perception that you’re being mistreated. From the perception of buddhadharma it’s a teaching. If you are a student, there are much, much deeper levels of learning and understanding. The understanding goes way beyond what arises in dependent origination, which creates the illusion of separation. You can’t change it so that you no longer rationalize, but you can stop covering it up. Through the practice of shikantaza, see the illusion that arises out of pratitya-samutpada and stop going to war with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrSK_RRzqFE

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche once said, “If you get too far away from the teacher you don’t get enough heat, and if you get too close to the teacher you get burned.” Just because you have the illusion that you have control of your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, your life with some kind of goal, that does not mean that the true teacher is doing that. What is meant by receiving the teacher’s heat is just to receive: hot cold, lukewarm, receive everything. Give the teacher the benefit of the doubt. Once you have a teacher, your petty mind is going to have to take a back seat. It’s going to get difficult. This is not a mundane path of feeling better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mtF2tDqLA0

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We tend to rationalize anything we don’t understand. We don’t want to look at the fundamental situation. Anytime you jump to some sort of idea about what’s happening, you abandon what’s right in front of you. Ego does not want to lose its fuel supply of rationalization about everything. Look at the chaos in the world. The situation we are in is dependently arisen in its multiplicity and its complete illusory nature, yet it has not occurred at all. If you think so, you’re going to fight. This is the Buddha’s basic teaching of impermanence; all compounded things will vanish. Sit down and just receive what arises in your mind stream without the rationalization. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBDkYsfKFaI

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That things are empty is an ultimate teaching and is also a path quality of Buddha-dharma. The Sanskrit word is shunyata. It’s not a relative emptiness, but that doesn’t mean it abandons relativity. It’s a concept that points to our grasping at how something appears as some kind of otherness, as a singularity. Once emptiness is seen, everything comes back and is full as it is. This is the third turning teaching. Emptiness is dependent origination and a way to encourage us to look deeply at the way things are through the practice of sitting meditation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rr0bJKCALk

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The five skandhas, or “heaps” are an ancient teaching. Simply put, form is the body and the other four are aspects of consciousness: feeling, perception, memory (or concept), and consciousness. Feeling includes the emotional quality that flows in through the thought patterns, which are very spacious until we seal it up with what we think about it. What an excuse to miss your life! You can actually meet your karma head on. I highly recommend that you do this. You don’t have to be a Buddhist, but train your mind so you see clearly what you’re looking at instead of your idea about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw5M5dtr5eE

Don’t demand anything, especially if you think you have a right to do so. In order to not demand, you might have to allow the feeling, the emotion, the energy to arise without hooking up your vocal cords. It seems to be very necessary to experience and accommodate the emotions that arise in the mind stream. The emotion is not the demand. It’s what we do to get away from the emotion. The way to work with it is to catch the negative emotion as soon as possible and meet it right there. If you can’t see it clearly, that’s how it’s loosened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM4R4zi3tIE

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