Daishin Yalon, Rev. Master

 

This is a transcript of a Dharma talk given at Shasta Abbey in May 2022.

 

Good Morning.  Nice to see all of you.  I think this is going to be a short talk because Jukai starts today, and Rev. Master Meian is giving a talk this evening.  The three things I am going to talk about are confidence, humility and fearlessness – and because this is a short talk, I’m just going to do a little bit about each one of these – you could have a full talk on each one of them.

Confidence, humility and fearlessness are things that I’ve been thinking about. They seem to be connected.  I was also inspired by the gift of a beautiful statue we were given recently – it’s back there near the Achalanatha shrine, and if you haven’t seen it yet, I would suggest you do so.

Confidence, humility and fearlessness are three very important qualities of training and practice to work on and develop, something we all can do. They serve as real anchors in our lives.

I looked up confidence in the dictionary, and some of the meanings were good, (some of them were the kind of confidence we don’t really want to work on and develop!)  The meanings that I liked for confidence are “firm belief, trust, reliance” – I really liked the word ‘reliance’. The dictionary also calls confidence “belief in one’s own abilities”.  I think that is important – we all have abilities and qualities, we’re good people.

So, confidence in Buddhism is both about self confidence and confidence in something bigger – you need both kinds of confidence.  Some Buddhists prefer to substitute the word ‘confidence’ for ‘belief’ or ‘faith’ – it works better for them.  Rather than saying “I believe or have faith in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha”, they prefer to see it as confidence in the Three Treasures.  For me, the main point is that I have faith and confidence in something bigger than me, which I am a part of, not separate from.  I think a certain amount of self confidence is good and helpful.  When it starts creating a bigger and bigger ‘me’, then that kind of confidence gets in the way of our training.  Again, there’s something bigger than me, which I am a part of, and I trust in, believe in, and have confidence in.

Rev. Master Jiyu often said, referring to herself “I am not the Cosmic Buddha, and there is nothing in me that is not of the Cosmic Buddha.”  The Triple Gem will not fail us; it’s a true refuge.  Proper or right confidence is not cocky, proud or self-absorbed.  When I was an athlete, there were a few really cocky people.  It’s one thing to have a bit of swagger and self-confidence, but when you’re cocky, I don’t know, I always found that a little hard to admire.

I ran across this advice from the Dalai Lama: he says that love brings self-confidence, and anger brings fear.  Self-confidence comes from generosity, thinking and caring about others, that’s what brings confidence. The Dalai Lama calls self-confidence “heart warmedness”; he also says that kindness and compassion give rise to self-confidence, which in turn empowers us to be honest, truthful and transparent.  So it’s not like we have to be confident first, before we can practice kindness, compassion and generosity.  We just practice those right away, and they give us amazing results.

Buddhist confidence is free from arrogance and pride; it’s not about a ‘big self’.  The best kind of confidence is a quiet confidence, a steadiness in training: not too up, not too down.  Proper confidence lightens our load.  You just get on with doing what needs to be done.  That’s true confidence, no big fuss, no drama.  It’s not like you have to know all the answers (good luck with that!), you just take it one step at a time.  You pay attention and you do the practice, moment by moment.

So, for myself, the longer that I live and practice, I seem to know less.  Sure I have some knowledge, it’s not like I don’t know anything – that would be false humility.  The thing is, knowing wasn’t what I thought it was; I was  mistaken in the beginning.  Real knowledge is the knowing of the heart – a little different than ‘head’ knowledge.

A while ago someone said to me, “you have the big picture”. I thought about it, and I concluded actually I don’t feel like I have!  I kind of make it up as I go.  I don’t know about you all, but in life a lot comes at you, it’s not like you control most things. Sometimes my mind wonders how I’m going to do something, how am I going to get through this, I don’t know how to do it – there’s a lot going on.  After some thought I make a bit of a plan – plans are good, you know.  But hard, set plans, are they going to be the solution?  Set plans can block flexibility and insight. Mostly I try not to worry, I put my energy into staying calm and being flexible.  You know, things work out: I have full confidence that my Buddhist practice is the direction I want to go, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are my refuge.  In the end, I’m the one who is responsible for my decisions on the road of practice, so what I do I take full responsibility for.  No-one moves my feet for me, I move my own feet, I go in my own direction.  We’re the owners of our karma.

So, that’s a little bit about confidence.  Obviously a lot more could be said.

Humility – again I looked this up in the dictionary – is defined as “the absence of pride or self-assertion, self-assertion being the act of demanding recognition for oneself, or insisting upon one’s rights and claims.”  A humble person is often actually self-effacing, the act of keeping oneself in the background.  I kind of like that, keeping yourself in the background. There can be a tendency  to keep pushing yourself out there.  You can keep yourself in the background, you don’t need to play it up big.  Just like with proper confidence, there is no big self there, that constantly needs feeding and watering.  There is no need to put ourselves down, that’s not the way to do it, you just don’t need to make a big deal about the self.  You can have real confidence in yourself, and be humble.  Again, we realise that it’s all so much bigger than us.

The Dalai Lama often says, “I am just one of billions of people there are on the earth, nothing special.” He doesn’t profess to be something special, he’s just one of us.  Rev. Master Jiyu, towards the end of her life would often said, “What do I know?”  It wasn’t because she didn’t know anything. As you get closer to death, there is something bigger. Rev. Master Jiyu also said, “It’s enough for me to know the Cosmic Buddha.” For her that was the real knowing, to know the Cosmic Buddha.  Another thing that Rev. Master Jiyu said was that Great Master Dōgen, towards the end of his life, would say that all I know is that on a face there are two eyes and a nose.  I don’t know how he came up with that, but he’s obviously making the statement: “What do I know?”  We’re really lucky to have examples like Rev. Master Jiyu, the Dalai Lama and Great Master Dōgen: they’re very confident and yet humble people.  They did their daily training, just ordinary people like you and me. They were not caught up in the game of gain and loss.

So that’s humility. I’ll talk a little bit now about fearlessness.

We were just given this lovely statue, to the right of the Achalanatha shrine. When you look at the statue, the Buddha’s got both hands up in a gesture called the ‘double abhaya mudra’. Abhaya means fearlessness. On our main altar, the Buddha is holding just the right hand up, palm outward. This is the single abhaya mudra.  I read up a bit about these mudras and when they arose in the Buddha’s lifetime.

The single abhaya mudra, that’s one hand up – the Buddha on the main altar – represents protection, peace, benevolence and the dispelling of fear.  The story goes that the Buddha’s cousin, Devadatta, became increasingly jealous of the Buddha – this is something that had been going on since their childhood.  I think unfortunately Devadatta got dumped on and discouraged at certain points, and he carried the grievance with him. Later as the Buddha became well-known and well-respected, Devadatta became very jealous of and angry with the Buddha. Devadatta launched a plan to get rid of the Buddha and take over the Sangha. Unfortunately he went so far as to try to kill the Buddha a number of times.

One of these times he found an elephant – I think this was an elephant who had a bit of a temper – and he fed the elephant alcohol, which further enraged the elephant.  Then he took the elephant to where the Buddha was, and the elephant charged at the Buddha.  Elephants are big. The Buddha raised one hand, and he gave rise to thoughts of loving kindness. As the elephant came closer to the Buddha,  he sensed the loving kindness radiating from the Buddha. The elephant went down on his knees and bowed to the Buddha.  So the Buddha was safe, Devadatta’s plan didn’t work.  This is where some people say the single abhaya mudra comes from. In actual fact these mudras were in Indian culture from way back, they preceded Buddhism. The abhaya mudras are  mudras of friendliness, they mean you weren’t armed, especially if you had both hands up!

The double abhaya mudra, which is what we see on the statue at the back of the hall, has both hands up. It’s sometimes called ‘the mudra of calming the ocean’. The story goes that the Buddha was wandering, and teaching, and he came across some fire worshippers. As he did the Buddha offered some Dharma to them. In return they offered him a place to sleep for the night which was near a river.  So the Buddha settled down to sleep, and all of a sudden he heard the river rising, really rising fast. The river was starting to break its banks.  So that’s when the Buddha did the double abhaya mudra and  the water slowed down and a flood was prevented, Needless to say the fire worshippers were amazed, and asked to become his disciples. This is the origin of the double abhaya mudra; it’s really a mudra of intense protection.

The double abhaya mudra is called calming the ocean. Why they didn’t call it calming the river I don’t know. We’re probably not going to experience anything like that in our lifetime. I don’t think we’re going to have to stop a flood, and we’re probably not going to be faced with an aggressive elephant that we need to calm down.  But what we all experience in our lives is fear – it’s just a common human thing, it goes back to when we were in the animal state.  Fear is not in itself a problem. It can be a protection, it can be a warning.  What is important is what we do with the fear.  Do we respond to the fear with wisdom, or do we just get more and more afraid?  Do we freak out?  Do we become defensive?  Or angry?  Or, do we take refuge in the Triple Treasure and our meditation practice?  Because those are things, in the midst of fear, that allow us to just settle. The fact is that we can sit still in all of life’s circumstances, and find our way through seemingly difficult times.  We all have them, and if we take proper refuge, if we really rely on our meditation, if we rely on the Triple Treasure, we will get help.

True confidence grows as we continue to practice. Again, confidence is both about self-confidence and a bigger confidence. We know in a humble way that we need not be driven by fear.  It is just a condition that we are best served to sit still in, and find a wise way to practice in.  Compassion and loving kindness are the direct antidotes to fear. Fearlessness is not a macho thing, it’s not about getting your testosterone worked up, and conquering the world and protecting everybody; that’s not quite it.  Fearlessness can be gentle, and it can also be firm. Those don’t contradict each other. There are times when we have to be firm, and stand our ground. Even then we can proceed gently.

So, through our practice of confidence, humility and fearlessness, we can offer the world the gift of fearlessness.  When we think about the meaning of dana, the gift of fearlessness is one of the forms of giving, and we can give this to the world, just by dealing with our own fear.  This is actually a very powerful gift that changes the world.