"Situation, Relationship, and Function"

“Explanation-style teaching is not enough,” says Zen Master Seung Sahn, ”some kind of demonstration is necessary.” - Seung Sahn

As Buddhists in general and Zen practitioners in particular, we try to spread the Dharma wherever possible. Sometimes we do it through words, sometimes through silence, and optimally through our actions. We try to leave greed, hatred, and delusion out, and bring generosity, love, and wisdom in, without proselytizing or preaching. Although it’s not always obvious or straightforward how we do that. 

Not every situation is the same. Likewise, no relationships are identical, and may change constantly. That being the case, can a single response realistically always be considered the correct one? It would be easy to say that generosity is always welcome, always helpful, always appropriate. But if a child were starving, would giving them a rubber ball for breakfast be generous? Would giving a basketball player a sandwich and expecting to see a fast break really be practicing the perfection of generosity? If someone’s wife just died, is pointing out the Buddhist teaching of no birth/no death be correct function? Would offering candy to a child who’s a stranger? None of these examples are necessarily bad actions, but they all reflect a certain tone-deafness regarding the situation and relationship.

We face challenges about what correct response—correct function—should be many times every day. If we aren’t paying attention—being mindful—and sensing the nuances in a given situation, we can very easily just do a shallow “Buddhist” response. Even the Buddha wasn’t all hugs all the time:

“….Ananda said to the Blessed One, "This is half of the holy life, lord: admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie."

"Don't say that, Ananda. Don't say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life….” (Upaddha Sutta)

In the Sutra in 42 sections, the Buddha said, “Giving food to a hundred bad people is not as good as giving food to a single good person,” meaning that not all dana is appropriate dana, or correct function. Through our pride, we might think to ourselves, “I’m so great, I just donated all this food to all these people,” but that isn’t as meritorious or wholesome as supporting even one person who helps all beings find their True Nature. Even within the realm of “saving all beings,” there are priorities. Sustaining one who will do the work of the Bodhisattva is more beneficial to all beings in the long run than randomly performing self-congratulatory acts that only help people who only spread greed, hatred, and delusion. Even this, however, is subject to paying attention to situation, relationship, and function. There are the King Ashokas, who start out evil and become good, and conversely Devadatta, who does the opposite. On the surface, generosity to Devadatta would seem more appropriate, but that may turn out to be a grave error. Even the Zen stick, a punch, or a twist of the nose may have skillful function…depending on situation and relationship.

The first of the Perfections (Paramitas) is generosity, or dāna-pāramitā); followed by morality (śīla-pāramitā); perseverance (kṣānti-pāramitā); vigor (vīrya-pāramitā), meditative concentration (dhyāna-pāramitā); and wisdom (prajñā-pāramitā). They are known as the Practice of Perfections, that’s to say that they are ongoing like our Zen practice. (Think of the phrase “Practice makes perfect,” but without ever achieving total perfection). They Practice of the perfections is how we perform correct function, skillfully adapting to situations and relationships from moment to moment, and always returning to the same simple point: “How may I help you?”

Haengdal Citta gave the Dharma talk June 26, 2024

"One Step Back"

Bodhidharma came from the West with the bowl, the robe, and a copy of the Lankavatara Sutra. As you might expect, many of the things we talk about in Zen practice come from this Sutra. One of them is the notion that”All things are created by mind alone.” Before dismissing that as preposterous, in Zen we also vow to save ALL beings, so “Mind makes everything,” is no more likely or unlikely.

Our imaginations create the world. Our perceptions, interpretations, and inferences create what we think of as reality. We believe it, and think of it as incontrovertible, that It. Is. Reality. It. Is. Truth. This is our world, and we make it up as we go along. That’s not good or bad, it’s an acknowledgement of what humans do; we think our way into sadness, happiness, pleasure, pain, all of it. We create Nirvana and Samsara. We create all sorts of concepts, beliefs, and ideas.We infer meaning to things that really don’t have any meaning to them, like the omens predicting doom, or hurricanes being divine punishment. We take statements made by others out of context; we misinterpret intention and motivation. Someone can say something to you that elicits anything from “meh,” to laughter, and to running away screaming, regardless of what the intention behind the statement was. We’re winging it, bouncing through the pinball game of existence and thinking we’re making a straight line, always one step back from reality, and all made by mind.

One of our Sangha members was involved in the cleanup of a major natural disaster, where hundreds of thousands lost their lives, homes, everything. We can make a mental image of the cleanup, we can possibly imagine what the sounds were, probably come nowhere near the actual smells, tastes, and touch were present in the cleanup. Our Sangha member is the only one among us who has actually experienced that and knows what his experience of it was. The rest of us may as well be writing the script for the next disaster movie, because our “experience” of it is just created by our thinking.

All our perceptions and interpretations remove us by one step back from reality. Since one of the major tenets of Zen is to directly experience reality, are we doomed to fail at that task? ZM Seung Sahn pointed out that just seeing, just hearing, just tasting, just smelling, just touching, not dependent on an outside object. No eye, sense of sight, object of sight, no differentiation between subject and object, no mind; all before thought. When we take our invented “I” out of the mix, we’re more likely to experience reality in its totality. We’re one step closer to the experience rather than we are when “I” am involved, thinking myself one step back from reality as it is and we can get on with the business of helping all sentient beings.

One final question: “What makes mind?”

Vesak 2024 Poetry Slam

Our 2nd Annual Vesak Poetry Slam!