Stepping Up
This is the transcription of a Dharma talk given at Shasta Abbey in February 2022.
This is a Dharma talk about aspiration and deepening our practice, in short it’s a talk about stepping up. This is not meant to make anyone feel that somehow they’re not doing enough in their practice. As you know, we primarily give these talks for ourselves, with the hope that it also might benefit others.
I wanted to give a talk where I explore what it means to deepen our practice, even if we’re just beginning, and talk about some practical ways that we can step up.
There is a call to training that resounds over and over. And it’s up to us to answer the call when we hear it. We have all heard the call to training because it has brought us here. Some things in life remind us of this call. When we hear about selfless acts, people helping others in perilous situations, something resonates in our heart, and reminds us of the selfless giving of ourselves to benefit others.
I remember last summer reading in the news about a man who’d gone to the beach with his family, and he just happened to look out into the water, which wasn’t just any old lake, it was one of the Great Lakes, Lake Ontario. Well he saw a pair of flailing arms. And without a second thought, this man swam out to save the girl, and also three other members of the same family. So four members of one family were simultaneously drowning, and this one person was able to save them all. It was just a remarkable story, he was a remarkable person. It so happens that this man was training to join the local fire department. And when we hear stories like this, the selflessness and the bravery of this man, it tugs at something – the wish to help beings.
I was quite taken with this story because first, it points to the innate goodness of people, and our wish to help others. Second, when we hear about such selflessness, it inspires us, it makes us want to do better in the mostly ordinary interactions we have with beings in everyday life. I think to myself, “right, I can let go of those crabby thoughts that arise when mud gets tracked into the dining hall, or whatever else”, because this is just small potatoes in training.
No matter where we are in our practice, whether we’re just starting out, or we’re a grizzled veteran, the opportunities to step up never cease. Let’s start by talking about meditation. For anyone wanting to deepen their practice, taking an honest look at our meditation is a really good first step. If someone is new to the practice, and new to meditation in particular, and maybe struggling a bit, I would ask them first if they’ve settled on one practice. Have they given this meditation a reasonable shot? Or do they like to skip around, keeping their eyes open some days when sitting, do visualization or mantra practices on other days? Because I think that this is an important question.
If we want to step up, if we want to deepen our practice, we have to give the meditation in one tradition a decent shot. I once heard a monk address this question of multiple practices, and they used the analogy of drilling for water. If we try one practice, then another and then another, we never get down into the dirt very far. We have to be willing to stick with just one practice if we want to find water.
When we can find a meditation practice that resonates, and a Sangha we can commit to, we begin to lay the ground work. And every day that we practice this meditation, whether we think we’re doing it or not, it strengthens that foundation, layer by layer by layer.
If we can find one practice that really resonates with us, and give it everything we have, even if we can only sit for a few minutes each day, it will become part of us, a part of our everyday life, not something that we just do on weekends. Because when the practice, and the meditation becomes a part of us, it becomes our foundation that we can lean on day in and day out. And this is the important point here – if we do the groundwork, if we lay a firm foundation of meditation, we will come to know there is something there that we can trust, that we can lean into time and time again when things are tough.
If we’ve been doing the practice for a while, if we want to deepen our practice, I think we need to be honest with ourselves by looking at our meditation practice. Do we sit consistently? Do we sit every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes? If we sit for five minutes, can we occasionally sit for 10 minutes? Or how about a short sitting in the morning and the evening? I’m not suggesting that we all should be sitting for hours in the morning and the evening, but rather just to honestly look at our meditation and see if there’s some room to grow, an opportunity to step up. Only we can make that assessment of ourselves.
Another way that we can step up in our training and deepen our meditation in everyday life is by actively bringing our meditation into our day-to-day activities. I think that there are so many untapped opportunities to bring our meditation into what we do. There is a simple joy that springs up when we fully do one thing at a time. More and more these days, the tendency is to multitask. We cook dinner and listen to our favourite album. We go for a run with our ear buds in. We might wash the dishes and stream something at the same time. We get in the car and turn on music or the radio. I’m not saying that we should never multitask. But if we only ever multitask in our day-to-day activities, we’re missing an opportunity to bring our meditation into what we’re doing.
The question of how we step up in our training can have so many facets. And one of the things that can be so difficult in training, is this feeling that we ‘don’t know’. We might feel that we’re not an authority on the practice, and so we question our meditation, we question our effort, maybe even the strength of our aspiration for The Way. So we look in books, maybe many, many books, or we listen to Dharma talk after Dharma talk, in search of some answer to our question. Or perhaps we simply don’t share our experience of training during Dharma discussions or find that we’re unable to ask questions.
I remember when I was first starting out here as a lay resident at the temple, before I was ordained, I was petrified to answer questions during Dharma discussions, even if I was simply speaking from my experience, because I was convinced that someone else knew better. In Dharma discussions, it can be so easy to hold back. We might think, “oh, I’ll let somebody else answer this”. Or we think that our experience isn’t relevant, or that we aren’t particularly wise, or haven’t been training for long enough to “know”. Stepping up means that sometimes we have to own up to what we know. This can be deeply uncomfortable, but if we want to deepen our practice, we have to be willing sometimes to take a leap, and own up to our own experiences. This doesn’t mean of course bragging about spiritual experiences, but being willing to share something that might help beings, if that moment arises.
To benefit others with our training, sometimes we simply have to let go of the judgments that arise regarding the value of what we have to offer. During Dharma discussions, we can benefit many beings by being willing to ask a question that we think is a simple question, or by sharing our experience of training on a particular topic. We just don’t know how our question or comment can benefit others. So just consider that sometimes it is worth taking that leap of faith.
Stepping up doesn’t mean we’re constantly striving to improve our practice. It also doesn’t mean that we must go all out to achieve something, to realize enlightenment. I think that Rev. Master Jiyu used to refer to this as ‘storming heaven’. Unknowingly, we may also have an idea that finding The Truth means finding the ‘right’ teacher, or receiving some esoteric teaching or instructions from another – the idea that we need something from another in order to be spiritually complete or whole. Stepping up, or deepening our practice means that we must learn to respond from that place of innate fullness instead of a place of lack. It’s trusting that fundamentally we have everything we need, and doing the best we can to keep to the Precepts, to help beings as well as ourselves. This doesn’t mean that we don’t go for Refuge to the Sangha, because this is a vital aspect of our practice. But rather, we trust what called us to the practice in the first place, we trust that we have the Buddha Nature and that we didn’t somehow miss out.
There is this lovely poem from the Denkōroku, The Record of the Transmission of the Light1, from Chapter 39, on Great Master Tōzan Ryōkai. The poem goes:
Truly I should not seek for the Truth from others, for then it will be far from me. Now I am going alone, everywhere I am able to meet HIM. HE is ME now, I am not HIM; When we understand this we are instantaneously with the TRUTH.
The use of ‘him’ and ‘he’ in this poem could just as easily be thought of as ‘Buddha Nature’, or ‘That which is’, or ‘the Unborn’, really any word that your prefer.
There can be a kind of constant looking outside of ourselves that some of us engage in at certain points in training. It’s doubting we can meditate, and looking to others for confirmation. It’s not owning up to what we know when our experience of training can be helpful. It can be as I mentioned previously, listening to multiple Dharma talks a day. There is a restlessness, a seeking, a constant searching that never seems to be quelled. This is why Great Master Dōgen says in Rules for Meditation:
[Why] travel to other dusty countries, thus forsaking your own seat? If your first step is false, you will immediately stumble. Already you are in possession of the vital attributes of a human being. Do not waste time with this and that. You can possess the authority of Buddha.
There is so much that we can get caught up in, so many detours that can lead us away from knowing that ‘authority of Buddha’ that Dōgen speaks of. Sometimes the detour that we get caught up in is simply doubting our ability to do the practice, thinking the practice is too hard, or thinking somehow that it’s something out of our reach. Stepping up here is simply trusting, over and over again that we have what we need, all the while just doing the day-to-day practice as best we can. It always comes back to meditation and keeping the Precepts.
Speaking of Precepts; if we’ve been under the impression that taking or keeping the Precepts is something that is out of our reach, I would like to say from the perspective of someone who is always stumbling with the Precepts and recommitting herself to them, that the Precepts are for us. And even if we think that we’re not at a point in our training where we can or should take the Precepts, we can still have a practice that includes the Precepts.
In our tradition we say that the Precepts are the ‘Conduct of Buddhas’, they show us how to create less suffering for ourselves and for others. The Precepts are compassion in action. So whether we’re new to the keeping of Precepts or we’ve taken them a long time ago, stepping up in our practice can be as simple as reading the Precepts or reading about the Precepts every week. It could be taking one Precept that we’re having difficulty with, and keeping it in mind, as best we can throughout the day. There are so many ways that we can make the Buddha’s teachings a regular part of our day. In reality it comes down to us.
We can have Temple Rules, condo rules, traffic rules, codes of conduct in society, or the sixteen Great Precepts and the forty-eight Less Grave Precepts, or any other aspect of training that we aspire to. But in the end, as Great Master Tōzan Ryōkai’s poem says, “now I am going alone”. It is up to us. Whether we wear our seatbelt when the highway patrol isn’t around, or we nourish jealousy and hatred even if we don’t say anything to others, or whether we foster the little irritations that arise on a daily basis; no one can do the work for us.
When I was a novice monk, and I’d leave something where it shouldn’t have been, a sign would appear courtesy of the Head Novice that read, “please remove”. Now that I no longer live in the meditation hall and that I have a room, it’s up to me whether I leave my socks all over the floor. And it sounds so simple, “it’s up to us”, of course it’s up to us. I say this because stepping up means that we have to put in the work ourselves, no one can do that for us.
Nowadays, no one is there to pester me about my socks. And when it comes down to it, no one can meditate for us, or ask the questions that really matter to us. Whether someone treats me with the utmost kindness or with disdain, I can’t control what comes out of their mouth, but I can work on how I respond. The more we can deepen our practice and live in accord with that which is greater than ourselves, the less suffering we create for ourselves and for other beings. Whether we’re just starting out in the practice, or we’ve been at it for forty years, there is always the opportunity to step up, there is always the opportunity to do the thing that our heart wants, but makes us uncomfortable. As it says in the Shushōgi, “…for they, in the past, were as we are now, and we will be as they in the future.”
Notes
1. Keizan Jōkin, Great Master, Denkōroku The Record of the Transmission of the Light ; Translator Rev. Hubert Nearman, 2003, Shasta Abbey Press, Mount Shasta, California.
