Step 4 Through 9 and the Work of Breaking Up Karma – Judith R.

One thing about sitting in pain, I talked quite a bit about it in the introductory class, but everybody has to deal with this, right? So, one thing I said which I'd like to repeat is that what we do with our pain in the context of our sitting is also what we do with out pain in our life. It's like a laboratory. So when you're in sitting and you're sitting with some intense sensation as I like to use the mind is that the right word I'd like to say so I don't call it pain anymore I call it intense sensation I have to learn what do I have to do with my body my heart and my mind to accept things as they are in this moment which is more difficult than not so so Buddhism then included but Buddhism really works on this idea of non-preference, that you don't prefer pleasure over pain, gain over loss, success over failure. So when you sit and it's an experience you don' t really want to receive, it' s just the greatest time to work on, I' ll receive what life is giving me right now. That' s kind of a surrender. so it strengthens you actually i was going to say uh i i talked quite a bit that if we only are want comfort comfort and even serenity serenety and peace peace our lives get smaller and smaller because the world isn't like that the world is chaotic and painful and a lot of karma and so we don't want to get fallen, only comfort only serenity you want to be able to deal with all the energy of the world and you learn how to do that by sitting when your knee is hurting you just what do I have to do to accept something I don't like and that will strengthen you so that you can do that in your life when something you don't like happens you don't have the same reaction to it because you've made that it's a real radical switch that you make in your sitting and the other thing I do is I think about the intense sensation as energy I say it as fire like oh, I'm burning up now and I liken that oh, i'm burning my karma So that makes, all of a sudden, that makes it positive. Like, oh, I'm burning something out here. Good. Let it rip, you know. And then I also use the energy of the fire to help me concentrate more on my breath. and actually I've learned samadhi, I've learnt concentration from sitting in fire because the only thing, the only avenue unless I'm going to run out of the zendo screaming the only avenue is to get with my breath and to relax on my exhale and then I can sit through anything and I proved that to myself and that strengthened me So now I feel like I can handle anything. I can handle death. I mean, that's kind of facetious, right? I have a humanity so I often do collapse. But I'm working on not collapsing. I'm working on how do I have composure in the changing world around me. And sitting with the fire of doesn't has helped me learn how to do that. So you really have to switch your mind. Is that okay that I said that, Tom? I didn't like it. I don't understand. If the boat was sitting with the fire and having a thing, why then would we provide these comfortable chairs in the door and all of the light? Okay, so some Zen centers would not provide you comfortable chairs. And if you move, they come over and hit you with the stick. Okay? I have been in Zendos like that, and I have trained in that way, and it's been actually helpful. However, if we did that, in this group, most of you would leave, I think. You would just, it's not American. it's not part of the western psychology so you therefore have to do it more slowly and teach people about it is my opinion and where I'm teaching from and the other thing about the fire if you turn the fire up too high what happens, everyone's a cook what happens if you turned up the fire to high and you just let it go on high the stew burns. Now I've seen quite a few people and quite a few Zen centers burn by turning up the fire to high and not adjusting the flame when the stew needs to go on simmer. So my experience has been if a brand new person comes in and is told they have to sit in half lotus and not move, Sometimes you get sciatica. Sometimes you're in so much pain you don't come back. And I want to say, you know, I'm learning. I bought a book, Slow Burning Cookery. you know this is you take a tough piece of meat and you put it in a pot and you cook it on simmer for like 12 hours and it falls apart and it's soft and beautiful falling apart so i think that you can also do zen practice that way but you can't do it if you don't have a flame at all, right? If you're not meditating there's no cooking. Just like if you're not going to meetings there's nothing there's no cooking going on you've turned off the stove so in my years I've noticed sometimes I turn it on high and that has been helpful sometimes I turn it on medium sometimes I go to simmer if something's going on that my body can't handle. And I also, over the years, have seen people have Zazen injuries. Again, 95% of our pain is not injurious, and we can deal with it mentally and heartfelt. But there is a percent where if your body isn't used to it, you can hurt yourself. You can hurt your knee or you can hit your hip or your back or blah, blah, right? Now, I have found that when I hurt myself in Zazen, it's usually when I'm competing with my neighbor. When I'm saying, I don't want to sit in a chair, that means I'm a wuss. Or even I can't move, but I know I think I'm hurting myself. So I think it's better not to hurt yourself. And over the years, I've learned that if I let myself get hurt, I have to sit in a chair for six months because then I've actually hurt my body and I have to give it time to heal but if I'm modulating how I'm sitting then that doesn't happen then I can just keep going adjusting the thermostat if you would like to go on height we have fish in here there are ways you can turn up your pot. Right? But this week, for many of you, this will be hot enough. Right. And this isn't, yeah, literally. So did I answer your question? Yeah, I sometimes get passionate about it. And I can talk a lot, unfortunately. Yes? When your foot falls asleep, do you just try to go to sleep? Footfall asleep, the only time you should worry is if you get up for kin hin and it doesn't go away within a minute. Then you might be irritating a nerve, so then you should be more cautious. But footfalling asleep, actually if you stay with it, it will come and go and it does not actually hurt you. And usually once you stand up, the blood will rush back in and it will be normal. so did I if it's not normal within a minute or two then you should adjust so that's an interesting one can you stay with your foot falling asleep and I think all then all meditators have dealt with that at one point or another would you agree people who are yeah so you just you just notice what it feels like. And don't scare yourself. That's why I don't call it pain anymore. The minute I say pain, I'm afraid. I'm out of here. I don' t want any more pain. I've had enough pain. Pain is going to kill me. So I don t use the word pain anymore, I just say, oh, something intense is going on in my body and how can I hold it? How can I be with it? Anybody else? Yes. You named your back, oh, what? Oh, Maurice. I'm glad it wasn't Whoops, I was going to have to say. Yeah. So are you nice to Maurice? Yeah, Maurice comes to the door for you. Okay. Yes? He said that intense temptation or being like burning off is karma. Can you say a little bit more about the then-temptation of karma? You can open the door. Okay. Well, it's all right. What I had to talk about isn't that important? No, I didn't mean that. I just said it doesn't matter what we talk about, right? If it's to the topic, it fine. I can talk about God some other time. No, God is in the karma. So we'll talk about karma. So there's two sides to things. An absolute side and a relative side. And those two things are one thing. This is the teaching in Buddhism. The opposites dynamically work together and they're harmonious so what I've been teaching and doing is my own practice when I notice that I'm putting one side against the other side I try and say that's dual my practice is non-duality and I try to get them to work in peace and harmony with each other so that would be pain and pleasure is one of those. So we have karma and we have freedom or emptiness. Those are the opposites we're working with. In this discussion, those are the opposite. So as I work with them, talk about them, I want you to notice that they go together. They're not separated. And I need to say that first. Karagiri Roshi would say it's like a leaf. You see one side, you see the other side, a leaf falling from a tree, but it's the same leaf. Now karma, no Let me start with the other. We are all Buddhas. We all illuminate radiant energy systems that are constantly moving and in flux, no matter whether we understand that or not. This is the teaching of Buddhism. You are the mystery with everything else, everything, non-exclusively, is the expression of the peace and functioning of the world, the mystery of being or God. So I'm getting what I wanted to say. Okay, that's how I try and do a non... So I wanted to talk about, I'm going to work with this all together. I wanted the 12 steps has a very Christian-based language with God the Father implicit almost everywhere. So as Buddhists that's a little bit hard to stomach sometimes. So thankfully they put God as we understand God. That was genius. on those 1940s guys that they did that that includes us but how do you work with the steps then when you're coming from a non-theistic faith so and you said something about it which is the minute you name it you've actually defiled it and a lot of religions say this about the word god the muslims and the jews they don't say the word because the minute you put a name on it it's no longer god right it's something you're processing through your intellect through your discrimination and in buddhism they say that god or the mystery of a being is ungraspable and not known by the human intellect this is our arrogance that we think we can know what the mystery is and even the scientists eventually get some awe awestruck by the mystery of being you know because who knows what giving birth is i mean that's the closest I've been to it. Like, what just happened? You know, out of my body. I can't possibly understand how that happened. And there's many things like that. Astronomy, how our bodies work that are completely beyond our intellectual understanding. So Buddhism says if you meet the buddha on the road if you think you understand and see it you should kill that concept your understanding and go back to i don't know i'm just awestruck by the mystery of being so when i say a god greater uh a god as i understand god that's kind of what i put in there is something beyond my discriminative consciousness that makes this world work. And I don't know what it is, and I don' t even want to know what it is. I just want to participate with appreciation. Right? So that's what I wanted to say about God in terms of the steps. So now I'm like, is it R2D2 that was the translator? I've gotten so good at over the 30 years that they talk Christian and it's and I've translated it into a non-theistic whatever you put in there like scientific you know, like quantum physics some of you will relate to that but you can't relate to God I just make it enormous And then that's how I translate it. Okay, now getting back to karma. One of the reasons we're doing a retreat or why we sit is to start to get in touch with and feel that enormousness, which we don't do when we're in our life. when we're in our life, we usually, unless your practice is very strong and some Zen people are really strong and some AA people are real strong, 12-step people, where they are not any longer in a cocoon of self-absorption. Do you know what I mean by that? A cocoon of self absorption which is that the world is revolving around your own needs constantly so in order to open so I would call that being consumed by your karma the cause and effect of your relative life if you don't have any light coming through there you're consumed you are a slave to your karma then you come to Buddhism and you start hearing about the signs of no construction, present moment, no time, there's no centralized self. What in the heck does that mean? I've lived my whole life with I, me, and mine being foremost and my addictions were really that and my depressions were really just that. just you know so self-absorbed i got sick well we all got sick right and nobody helped me or nobody taught me that there are ways not to live your life like that because my parents were the same and their parents were insane there was no i had to go outside the system to get some new information so the information is that there's another world that's free of that so you come to a retreat to taste to hear the dharma so you can say wow there's something else and you can start to contemplate and digest that wow there is something else going on like we believe ordinary mind believes that what we see what the appearances is the truth and then you come to buddhism and they say oh that's not the truth that's a concept that's the fabrication of your mind what's the truth is what's happening right now that's true that's what you have your past is gone now it comes through you So this is where I want to say, finally though, karma and this shining open reality come together in every moment. And that's a really rich practice. You don't kill your karmic life, you use it as a vehicle, you let the light of your Buddhahood shine through the armor of your karma. You know what I mean? The cocoon. You let who you really are, free, open, mystery, shine through that cocoon and you start to do that the more and more you practice, I think. And that's what I mean burning. When I'm sitting zazen and something's really hurting, I say, oh my light's trying to... And sometimes for years I'm like right here. Because it's so hardened what I think I am in my body. It's suppressed. and then once in a while it breaks open and the energy starts to flow and I think, oh my God, I'm like this? You know, and then it's too much. Have you guys had that where you've had a spiritual experience and then you close down again like, oh, I feel like I'm going to die. Oh, I'd be too afraid. I can't be ego-less. Oh, they say it in the big book. I can't be the hole in the donut. Isn't that the thing? But actually, when you're in surrender and when you are really pumping God or the mystery, you are already in touch with the mystery. You are the hole of the donut and the donut is cause and condition, the cause and conditions of your life which we call karma. But karma is not negative. is. It just is how your life expresses itself. And I think, especially, this is one of the reasons I think that 12-step and Buddhism go so great together, is if you do 4 through 9, you are opening up your karma. Do you know what I mean? You are going into your old patterns, your old relationships with people and you're clearing it up through hard work through real work I mean the hardest thing in the world I think is to go to someone I dislike and say I made a mistake I mean if I hadn't been in AA I would never have done that I only did that because everyone was rooting for me and saying you have to do that It will help. Go do it. It doesn't matter what they say. I needed my rooting, my cheering squad or I would never have done those hard amends that I wanted to do. so that's breaking up karma from 12 step in Buddhism 12 step side and meditating is breaking up karma, meditating in the fire is breaking up karma from the Buddhist side and then hopefully like the promises of the program eventually you're dealing with your karma moment by moment, you're not like dragging your whole history behind you in a heavy weight that's what they say right you won't regret the past or shut the door on it it's let loose you cut the backpack off your back and then that's like ten step inventory then then you're current you're currently with what's happening and you can live a very free life current that's not to say you're not dealing with your karma you're always dealing with you're karma But it's current karma. And that's easy to deal with. Not easy, but you know, if you have cancer, it's not easy. But it is possible. Everything is possible and that's why you need the strength of your spirituality to deal with cancer divorce losing your job you know you have this inner strength that you don't take it at the end of the world you just see it as part of karmic life and one other thing I want to say and then I need to stop is just speaking of doing step work step work in combination with meditation and I've done a lot of meditation. Up until I was 40, I'm now 56, so 16 years ago. And I came into program in my early 20s, like 23. So 23 to 40,I basically was burning karma. I was tossing and turning. And in many of those years, I went to a meeting every day. And I needed a lot of support. I did a lot therapy. I went through therapy ad nauseum, you know. But I was trying to let loose of my karma. And, I really feel my parents' karma and my grandparents' karma and my ethnicity. There were many levels that I felt I had to address. And I hit 40 and bang, my karma just turned around. And from 40 on I've had lots of fruition of good karma. So it blows my mind. And i think that's what the promises are about. That all of a sudden because you're doing the work you're not producing as much suffering in your life as you used to and you used to produce a lot if you were you know if you're here you probably produced a lot when i talk to regular zen people i'm not as blunt but when i talked with 12 step people i say oh, well, we probably are here because we did a lot of, you know, stuff that needs to be cleaned up. I love the other part in the big book I love is they're coming out of the tornado shelter and he said, oh, the sun's shining and this is after someone's got sober. The sun's shiny and it's so fantastic but he doesn't notice that the whole farm is destroyed. so we have to take care of that karma and another thing about karma that i'm getting from some children bless her is um uh even if i change the karma a little bit before i die that's good that will have big effects i'm never going to clean it all up i can't right because I'm powerless over people. I can't say I'm going to clean up my whole family mess, because my family's participating in that, right? But a lot has changed with my family, even with them not changing, although they have changed. So for me now, I'm satisfied. I guess I've lowered my standard. My standard used to be, and I think this is an addict's standard, all or nothing. I'm either the best saint in the world, the best AA in the word, the best Zen teacher in the road, that's so ego aggrandizement, but I didn't used to see it. Now I just say, I'm a human being and if I can just unravel my karma somewhat in this lifetime that would be great maybe I won't have to marry my brother or do you know what I mean I won t have to go back and untangle the mess that I'm producing in this life time I'm trying not to produce a mess I'm trying to clean up the mess and do good acts in the last half of my life so that that when I die, I'm a little bit more free, open, and I've been of service. We're going to keep talking about this. This is all the steps are about this, right? So now since I've had this change in my life, I feel like my position is to serve. And it's not that easy, actually. It's not that fun. And I'm an addict and I want a high. So every day I deal with that part of myself that wants a high and I say, no, you don't get a high, you have to go to work today. Sorry, but serve, please serve. And then you start getting some good sense about yourself through serving. But it's quite different than how I used to think about it. Okay, let's not have questions and answers or no? Let's just stop and we'll catch your question at another time.