Different kinds of attention

Welcome, Paul and Kati joining on Zoom. Hello to everybody in the shrine room. I want to read something by Ruth King called Regret Was the Soil. Um, I found this because whoever's running their tricycle social media accounts shared it, but it's good. So she writes, I try to give myself a few weeks of concentrated practice each year, a returning, a remembering, and I've just come back from a self-retreat at Insight Meditation Society where I devoted myself to shamatha and mahamudra practice. Days of silence, days of simplicity, days of listening beneath the obvious. And what arose with surprising regularity was restlessness, specifically regret, an unsettledness that kept moving through my body and across my mind like an intense storm. At first I met it in the familiar way, as something to work with, something to steady, perhaps even something to overcome. Restlessness, after all, is one of the five hindrances the Buddha teaches us to recognize. But as the days deepened, something quieter began to reveal itself. What I discovered is that restlessness was never really the whole story. Restlessness was the surface. Regret was the soil. This surprised me. There were moments when regret didn't simply visit me, I became it. The mind tightened around an old story, an old choice, an unfinished moment, and suddenly I was no longer witnessing regret, I was wearing it. Breathing it, identifying with it. Perhaps you know something of this terrain. But what became clear in the silence is that regret was not arising because something was wrong. It was arising because something in me had finally— it was arising because something in me had become spacious enough for it to finally speak. And what allowed me to see this was not sharper concentration, not more effort, not some extraordinary spiritual breakthrough. It was peace. When I zoomed out of the intense experiences of regret, I realized peace was not absent. Peace was abundant. Steady, seasoned, available. It had been growing all along, quietly beneath the noise of my more familiar and habitual conversations with regret and concern. And it was this ripened peace— not effort, not analysis, not fixing— that loosened the grip of regret. Peace gave regret room, room to speak, room to tremble, room to tell its story again and again until it no longer needed to hold my body and mind hostage. And as regret told its story in the warmth of awareness, in the spaciousness of stillness, it began to lose its charge. Not because it disappeared, but because it no longer needed to fight for space. This is what I'm learning. Sometimes what feels like restlessness is a portal, not agitation at all. Sometimes it is old regret finally trusting the peace you have cultivated enough to come out of hiding. Perhaps this is why practice matters so deeply in times like these, in a world saturated with racial distress, political injustice, collective exhaustion, the ache of poor choices, and witnessing harm repeated in old and new forms. It is easy to become fused with what we see, easy to mistake what we witness for who we are or who they are. But when peace has been ripened within us, something else becomes possible. We are less likely to be captured by what moves through us, less likely to become the fear, the outrage, the grief, or the regret, more able to stay, more able to see clearly, more able to let what is unfinished rise into the light of awareness and complete its course. And from that steadiness, we keep our wits about us, our hearts open, our minds clear, our courage available. So that long work of healing and justice is not only fueled by distress but also by peace. Moving into Meditation, practicing not trying to be anywhere else but here. Chant the Tibetan form of the Nembutsu this evening. Om Amidey Wa Hri.

Om Amidey Wa Hri. Om Amidey Wa Hri. Omari de wa ri. Omari de wa ri. Omari de wa Oh, Mami Dewari. Oh, Mami Dewari. Omite wa ri. Omite wa ri. Oh, me, te wa ri. Oh, me, te wa ri. Oh, ma, me, te wa ri. Oh, Mami De Wa. Oh, Mami de Wari. Oh, Mami de Wari. Oh, Mami de Wari. Oh, Mami, day one. Oh, Mami, day one. Amitewa.

Amitewa.

Now read the Statement of Faith together.

Statement of faith.

The purpose of our practice is to open us to the wisdom and compassion of the Buddhas. Our heart practice is the Nembutsu, the recitation of Amida Buddha's name. We also connect with the Buddha's wisdom through practices like listening to teachings, meditation, and being in the natural world. We treasure Shakyamuni Buddha, who set the wheel of Dharma turning. We learn from Buddhist teachers throughout the ages, awakened beings everywhere. And the world itself. We especially revere the great Pure Land sages Honen and Shinran. Held in Amida's loving gaze, we come to know ourselves deeply, both our bambu nature and our Buddha nature. As bambu beings, we grasp at unreliable refuges and sometimes we cause harm. Knowing the harm we cause offers us the chance to lessen that harm. Seeing our fallible nature also strengthens our refuge in Amida Buddha. The more deeply we take refuge in Amida, the more our greed, ill will, and delusion will melt like ice into water. Allowing our natural compassion to flow into the world. We trust that at the center of each of us is the heart that loves all loving beings and that wishes for their liberation. We take action powered by this love in response to suffering in the world. We pay attention to the causes of suffering We mitigate for power. We practice discerning what work is ours to do. We wish that all who may benefit are able to access the jewels of the Buddha's teachings. Moved by the Buddha's love, we vow to take care of all living beings, including ourselves. Held tenderly by the Buddha's love, We find clarity, consolation, and settled faith. For refuge I go to the Buddha, the one who is awake and full of love. Namo Buddha. For refuge I go to the Dharma. All that guides us to wisdom and compassion. Namo Dhamma. For refuge I go to the Sangha. Those who live in the Buddha's light. Namo Sangha. For refuge I go to the Earth, the holy ground of awakening.

Namo Sangaya.

Namo Wumye. With faith in the Four Refuges, and in light of my human tendencies, of when I fall into sexual misconduct. I pray that I may become aware of when I fall into wrong speech. I pray that I may become aware of when I become intoxicated. No blame. Be kind. Love everything. Innumerable sentient beings, we vow to save them all. Exhaustible deluded passions, we vow to transform them all.

Immeasurable Dharma teachings, We vow to master them all.

Infinite is the Buddha's way.

We vow to follow it completely.

A few weeks ago, a video popped up on my YouTube recommendations of a comedian I like, Pete Holmes, interviewing, uh, Robert Spiro, a non-dual teacher who I'd never heard of. But Pete Holmes goes to his retreats, and they recorded a chat. Together, and I listened to the first few minutes. And he was English, uh, Robert Spiro, I think that's his name. And he was very calm. He had a very sort of lovely, maybe upper middle class sort of, but he's, he had a nice, uh, still energy. And a little way into the chat, they were talking about non-dual awareness, and Pete said something like, oh, in the past you've said athletes, like super athletes, must have that. They talked about athletes being in a flow state and that there was some equivalence here to non-dual awareness. And I'm not a world-class athlete, that's pretty clear if you look at me. I'm hard to believe I have played sports in my life, and I've listened to people in various capacities at various levels in the sporting world. And maybe it's true that for some people being in a flow state does equate to a non-dual awareness. Non-dual awareness, I think of Dogen saying body and mind dropping away in this sense of no stories, just the experience of being one with the whole world. And a flow state, I think, of, uh, more to do with concentration than awareness. That it's a single-pointed focus on a particular task that you give yourself to completely. And maybe there is no— as, as Dogen said again in his Instructions to the Cook, there's no thought between you and the knife when you're chopping the vegetables. There's no thought between you and the ball. There's just the ball and movement and connection and muscle memory and a deep level of concentration, which isn't a tight concentration. But is extremely focused on the game. And some of the, uh, some of the people I listen to who have those experiences, actually, they're able to go there because they cut off parts of themselves. So footballers who get injured because they're doing something with so much focus and intention, they miss some warning sign in their body that something is about to go wrong. And just— I just want to complete this goal run, and then suddenly they're injured. Or any sport, you know, or any activity. And then not long after that, a couple of weeks ago, we were at the dancing, the modern dancing, and I heard Raghuvani say something similar about dancers that you've known, that they can kind of disassociate from their bodies in order to achieve these kind of beautiful forms of perfection. And I've read a lot of— I don't know why I had a phase of reading a lot about ballet. I've never been to the ballet, but— well, I do know why. It's because it has a slightly cult-like, uh, more than slightly cult-like form. Certain ballet schools, particularly like Russian ballet schools, the New York Ballet, it's a very high control context. And people cut off parts of their experience— hunger, pain— in order to, in order to achieve a kind of perfection which includes that focus, single-pointed concentration on the dance, on the movement, on the form. And then there's consequences later, right? Eating disorders, injuries, mental health problems. There is a real value in single-pointed concentration. It's one of the things the Buddha invites us to practice when we do meditation. Right, just focusing on— some meditation teachers will use the flame of a candle, for example— learning to gaze on that place without becoming distracted by anything else, and then bringing that attention to other parts of your experience. And that second instruction sort of mitigates some of the damage, right, because you're bringing it to your body, your thoughts. Um, you're checking out what's happening in all sorts of places. And there's also wide open attention where we're aware of many different things at once in a soft way. So not of the detail of things, but I can notice the air on my skin, the heat in my body, the birdsong, movement of other people in the room, the colors of the room. And that's a really valuable form of awareness. And, and there's a closeness in that kind of awareness to what— there can be a closeness in that kind of awareness to body and mind dropping away. It can be step, a step on the way to body and mind dropping away that I think is closer to the non-dual state than that single-pointed awareness. Although I'm sure you can get there by both ways. But in an ordinary life, which is where most of us live most of the time, right, it's kind of also be helpful to think about these two different forms of awareness and which one we're in at any given time. If If you want to achieve something, that single-pointed concentration, the focus on a task, on a goal, is really useful. It can take you somewhere much more quickly than this kind of soft, diffuse awareness of the whole and the context that I'm in right now. You know, and if I want to get my bookkeeping done, I just have to sit down and start at the beginning and move through it with as little distraction as possible, and then it's done, then I can feel better. The danger of going too deeply into that single-pointed focus is that we miss all of this other stuff, like the ballerinas who don't pay attention to their bodies, for example. So it's, it's really helpful to have that single point in concentration, but it's not helpful to stay in it for too long. You wanna come out, take in the world, take in your body, take in the present moment, come back in again. And my sense is actually that for most, maybe not for most of modern life, but for kind of good mental health and good spiritual practice is that most of the time we wanna be in this softer place, open, to different kinds of experience, open to the wider context, heart open, senses open, allowing what comes to come, allowing what goes to go. And then when it's time for a task, narrowing, then coming away again. And what I find in my daily life is in the moments where I'm being unskillful, often what happens is that I go into that more single concentrated focus, but it's on something, it's on something I'm anxious about rather than something I need to get done or something I'm angry about or something I'm greedy about. When we're in, like, okay, there's three poisons: greed, hate, and delusion. Delusion can be a single-pointed concentration if we're focused on something that's really distracting and takes us away from the present moment. But it can also be more like a sort of dissociation, which might feel like the soft openness, except we're also blanking off things that are really important to pay attention to. But greed and hate can feel like that narrow, single-pointed concentration. So it can be a useful practice to feel in your body the contraction that comes with that that often comes with that single-pointed concentration. It's an embodied reaction like, oh, now I'm fixated on something. Maybe that's a sign that you've moved into the same mode as a world-class athlete on the task that you're doing, but maybe it's a sign that you've been caught by one of the three poisons. And one of the really useful solutions to that is just to bring your attention back to the wider space that you're in, to notice the floor, the sky, the sound. We're welcoming in the Buddha when we do that. So if you like, you can take this as a practice for a day or a week or a month or a year, as it says in one of the sutras, just noticing what kind of awareness you have at any given time and whether that feels appropriate to the moment. Or not. Namaste.

We make this offering to all Buddhas and bodhisattvas throughout space and time. May it be fragrant as the earth itself, reflecting our careful efforts, our wholehearted mindfulness, and the fruits of understanding and self-mastery. May we all beings be companions of Buddha, Sangha, and disciples. May we awaken from forgetfulness and realize self.

A moment of announcements. Kirtan's coming up soon.

Yes, this Sunday.

This Sunday.

This Sunday, moved. Okay.

And then next Saturday, July 6th, giving a talk on no June 6th. I'm really hot. I'm giving a talk on no blame after practice at 10:45 in here. Why is it— why is no blame a virtue? How do we not blame ourselves or others? Like, what's the practice of working with no blame? What's the difference between blame and responsibility and so on? So please join us.

For that. I've got a book group starting June— on June 20th till August the 8th. That's about 7 weeks, and it will be on Nagarjuna's book about the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, which is a great So, I think about 2 spaces. Great, snap them up. Yeah, snap them up. It's a Zoom one, right? So, on a Saturday. I think it's Saturday.

All the information is on the website. Yeah, it's all on the website. Yeah, no worries. Blessed by Amitābha's light, may we care for all living beings and the holy earth.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.