The 5th Realization of Great Beings
commentary by Brother Phap Hai, May 28, 2022
and uh so it would be very easy for me to say oh it would be so much more pleasant just to have sitting meditation on my bed and things but uh it's an example of just showing up regardless and so for me i practice to enjoy the the fresh air um in the mornings during this period.
So we just keep showing up regardless of how we we personally feel
on that day of understanding that in each and every moment regardless there's going to be a shade of feeling arising if we have a sensory input based on our own innate likes and dislikes our genetic factors our health status um the experiences that we've had there'll be a shade of feeling arising it'll be pleasant unpleasant neutral or mixed and rather than basing our reactions on those we look deeply into them and we see that in some or actually in many cases they're not really based on very much on one level with this approach of just inviting the temple bell we show up externally for activities but on a deeper level we show up internally for each moment the other approach is to engage with practice just for its own sake rather than trying to achieve something so often we approach our practice with a sense of we need to do this so that we will have earned peace and joy or liberation or happiness whatever it might be that we feel is the aim of our practice so rather than this it's possible to engage with our practice our mindful walking our mindful breathing and so on with the sense of practice itself being the ultimate fruit or the fruition rather than a technique to get something or attain something yet another project and goodness knows we've got quite a lot of those how would this understanding change your approach we sit just to sit we walk just to walk there's a sense rather than being a means to an end the capacity to sit there fully present on the cushion the capacity to stop all of our physical and mental running around to be fully present for our breath the blue sky your happiness or sadness the cold air another person is actually the very fruit the ultimate fruition of practice at the same time practice the capacity to practice mindfulness concentration and so on is both a cause and a result at the same time with our intellectual minds we tend to think that the result comes only after the cause here both cause and effect are wonderfully won this is what we spoke about last time when we spoke about the invitation of the zen master dogen to see meditation as the gateway the practice and the experience of royal ease not the practice to obtain ease and joy but the practice of ease and joy as taste shared with us so many times we are already what we want to become now the secret is that our ability to practice peace and joy is not dependent on external or internal conditions the way we usually assume it would be if only i had this or that condition then i'll be able to be at ease you know actually with this mindset we're never going to quite get there since in samsara in this saha world we're never going to quite get there wherever there is for you in each moment when we engage with practice as the realization itself we begin to notice our tendency of thinking that we won't be happy we won't be peaceful we won't be liberated until this or that happens i move to a monastery and then everything's going to be okay or i uh get this or get that and then everything's going to be perfect this sense of resisting joy because of this or because of that one of the insights expressed through the heart and the diamond sutra that many of us have read and some of us chant every single day is that nothing has an inherent separate reality suffering and dissatisfaction too if we stop feeding something it passes away our thousands of reasons to put off ease and joy and peace of mind have no inherent reality if we stop giving them energy they pass away circumstances and conditions they certainly affect us and they influence us we're humans after all believe it or not but this insight is the basis for being able to take another step when we feel we can't walk anymore of being able to cultivate a heart that's big enough to to not be somebody who holds joy at the expense of pain suppressing suffering or only holding pain and excluding joy but to be able to hold both at the same time and to not see them as pairs of opposites but to see that in a way they contain each other a while back somebody was from the local area was visiting mountain spring and in the course of our conversation this person said buddhism is all about suffering right when i shared with them that buddhism is about suffering but actually it's about how it's about understanding how we create suffering but that its real foundation is on happiness well-being and ease that person was surprised even though there are images of a smiling and peaceful buddha everywhere the practices and teachings of buddhism have got a reputation for being sort of heavy a bit of a downer our practice can become quite serious and so can we lack of happiness joy spontaneity and ease is not a sign of spiritual progress seriousness often comes out of an overblown sense of our own importance in fact as we continue to practice the ancient commentaries remind us again and again that ease joy and happiness these qualities saturate us and the image that they give is that they saturate us just like water will saturate a clay ball remember this if nothing else joy is one of the seven factors of awakening one of the seven aspects of awakening it's not a byproduct joy nurtures a spaciousness in our heart and our mind that allows us to hold the suffering we experience inside us and around us without becoming too overwhelmed or despairing rather than disconnecting us from reality or putting on so-called pollyanna glasses meditative joy emerges from cultivating the capacity to look at our life just as it is seeing all the pain but also seeing all the happiness and as we continue down this path since we're not we're not engaged so much with our desperate attempts to control absolutely everything the fruit of the practice manifests as lightening up so this can be a very helpful thing for us to reflect on how have i lightened up over the course of my practice it would be a wonderful thing to practice for a whole year to practice to lighten up this to be our in the dhammapada one of the most ancient texts of buddhism there's a verse that is translated in the following way by thomas byram he says live in joy in love even among those who hate live in joy in health even among the afflicted live in joy in peace even among the troubled look within be still
be free from fear and attachment and know the sweet joy of the way
