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Q3-19900217-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-hot_buddha_cold_buddha-1581 Leandra Tejedor
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Talk: 19900217-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-hot_buddha_cold_buddha-1581 Leandra Tejedor (1).json Start_time: 00:39:10 Display_question: I'm wondering if you could speak to a sense of value and purpose for oneself. Keyword_search: non-attachment, value, purpose, despair, impermanence, monks, nuns, laypeople, India, Aria sangha, arahant, Swami Chinmayananda, Hindu, forms, Chinese Zen master Question_content: Questioner: I have a question that I think I spoke with you about earlier, which for me keeps coming, and going, and I actually learned a lot sitting with this question. And I guess it's interesting that I both I would like to speak to it, and I feel like I also… well, it’s like every time I feel like I find the answer to it, and get attached to the answer, then the question comes back again. Although I feel like I found a sense of it this morning, but I don’t really know. But the question has to do with, more, I guess the question in light of non-attachment, and having a perspective on everything that you're unattached to, you let things come, you let things go, that loss comes from, well since the retreat, it would lead to a sense of despair, and is there any value in anything in life? So, I'm wondering if you could just speak to a sense of value and purpose for oneself. Larry: Yes, we can easily tilt into an imbalance on this. For example, take the notion of impermanence. What tends to get overemphasized, impermanence is just impermanence. Everything changes. Everything that arises passes away. It's an observable fact. We all know that. And what we emphasize, of course, because we're all so far away from it, is that we're not attuned to this fact, and we live as if it's not true. And as a result, we suffer unnecessarily a great deal. So, it starts to sound like, well, impermanence, that's bad because, oh, what it really means is everything's falling apart, and so we ought to not hold on to anything, which is true. But the flip side of that, and here's where we get to the subtle part of nonattachment, which is very easy to misunderstand it. It's difficult to live it. The other side of that is, for example, if you more and more can to some degree see that everything that arises passes away, it's not just a negative thing, because while something is there, it makes it all the more poignant, whether it's a friend, a child, a meal, a sunset, whatever it is. Break_line: So, nonattachment. I think what is confused, this is my own view, and opinion, what gets confused is, that so much of the teaching that we've received, has come from monks. And there is one path that's the monk’s path. In that path, the objects which cause a lot of suffering. In a sense, the approach to help us get to do something about that is, to avoid those objects which cause the problem, or even don't touch them at all. No money, no sex, one meal a day, no belongings, just some clothes, et cetera. So, because the objects really in of themselves are not a problem, that is, money is just money. Sex is just sex. Food is just food. Clothing is just clothing. If you just look at it with a clear mind, that's all it is. But it has a health… the monk’s path, monks and nuns’ path is very realistic. I mean, it's having a healthy respect that they say, look, look around you. How many people it's true. All it is, is green stuff, and just the natural process of, let's say, making love. Break_line: But look, most people are destroyed by it. They either have too much of it or not enough. They're either overeating, or undereating, or have too much sex, or not enough sex, or starving, or just drowning in money, or just have so many belongings they don't know what to do with it, or don't have anything, have to live out in the street. And so that what they're saying is, it's a kind of a healthy fear. Healthy, it's sort of like, wow, okay. Those energies are really powerful, sexual energy food, energy. Just take those two. We'll throw in money because who has really learned how to work with those, in a very balanced way? Break_line: So, one approach is you just minimize contact with those objects, because they're so dangerous, and they've demonstrated they are. Most of us don't know what to do with it. And so a whole path evolves, to stay away from that, and to use the energy that you can have, by having a simplified life. In other words, if you can do that, if you're cut out for it. And that can be a very powerful, and wonderful path. Break_line: Okay, now it turns out, here we are laypeople. We're in the world. We handle money, we make love, we eat, we have homes, and clothes, and all the rest of it. We have to be careful that we don't kind of have this mixture of sort of we're neither monks, and nuns, nor laypeople. We don't quite know what we are. Kind of off again, on again Willie, or whatever that phrase was. So that sometimes we have that standard either consciously, or without our knowing it, coloring what we do, and not letting us really touch things in the world, thinking they're dirty, or they're bad, and then we go crazy, and we get all involved with things. But the way of living, of non-attachment is something like this. It doesn't mean you have to renounce things. What you have to renounce is the way you relate to the things. Break_line: One of my first teachers was a yogi from India, who was a very wealthy banker in India, and as best as I could understand, and others who studied with him, he was really free of all that. And he used his money very skillfully. He himself, he dressed well. He had certainly what he needed. And he was just very free of money, and used money all the time helping people, directing funds in certain ways, using the banking system. Money itself is not a problem if you can be free of it. It's an energy, it's powerful, it's very good. And it's the same with everything else. Break_line: So, we have a different path, it seems to me. And sometimes a lot of people who are in the spiritual path are ambivalent. They're not quite haven't fully decided, taken the monks and nuns path, which has a certain dignity, nobility. It's a very beautiful path, but you've got to really do it. You can't sort of kind of do it. Because if you do, it's a mess. And that has happened to many American monks, especially. We've seen it. People are just like wavering, and not sure what they are, or what they're attempting to be. It's a very tricky thing because I've lived with monks and nuns a lot, and I've gotten to know what goes on inside. I don't have a romantic picture of it. I have the deepest respect for the ideal of, let's say the Aria sangha, the order of monks and nuns. The nun’s order is starting to get revived. Now, it's been a bit dormant for a while, for the ideal and when it's carried out, and there are plenty of people who are really doing it, but an enormous number of monks and nuns are not, what they're doing… Break_line: For example, what is more spiritual? Let's say if you have somebody who's wearing monk’s clothes, shaven head, just eating one meal a day, et cetera, no sex and not carrying money, but if all day long they're walking around, I'm a monk, I'm a monk, I'm a monk, I'm a monk, I'm a monk, I'm a monk. You're a layperson, you're a layperson, you're a layperson, you're a layperson. Is that any more free? I would say it's less free, if you were a layperson, and you were just simple, not preoccupied with being a layperson, or a monk. A clear mind, using the things of the world, which have their own beauty. There's nothing wrong with food, necessarily, or money, or making love, or having a home. None of those things are in of themselves suffering. They're just what they are. It's just that we don't know how to do it. We don't know how to live with them. We get attached, we get over, or under, or something. Break_line: So, by the way, the state of being an arahant has nothing to do with being a monk or not a monk. That's beyond being a monk or a nun in that life. That's a conventional form. That's a convention. That's something that's been devised as a skillful means, to help people. And some it helps them a lot. It's kept Buddhism alive for all these years. So, the art of… if you got sad, you ought to look into that. What is that about? Because nonattachment can mean, it can mean, let's say, doing whatever you do, fully. That's what we've been encouraging. We've been encouraging, all of us, encouraging ourselves to do it. That is, it means when it's time to eat, to be able to eat, to be able to, but when the meal is over, it's over. Now, it's a different kind of training. What you're learning there is, you're learning how to fully do something, and how when it's over, it's over. To move on to what's next. I think that has its own rigor. It's very difficult, it has its own dignity. To learn how to real. Now, how are you going to learn that? It seems to me you've got to dive in. Otherwise, we're going to be constantly poised in this strange state of neither living the monk’s path, or fully under…the things of the world are intimidating. We kind of dabble in them, and we dabble in the so-called spiritual path. We're neither. Break_line: I had one teacher, Swami Chinmayananda, who was a Hindu, who I heard him tell a lot of his students, he said, many of you, you'd be better off just why don't you go and just become successful businessmen, for goodness sakes, and get it over with? You're not really yogis, you're not really in the business world. You don't have relationship. What are you doing? You're just trying to avoid everything, playing it safe, cutting corners all over the place. And he just felt, he said, I think you're better off. Just go into business and do that 100% is better than being a half-baked yogi. He used a stronger word than baked. And so, I think we're having to find out what we need to do, because so much this again, very much my opinion. I take responsibility for it, but it is just that. I feel that I've had a number of excellent teachers who have been monks. And I also feel that some of the advice they've given me sometimes has not been exactly correct, because they haven't known what it's like to be, in the world. And it's not that they're bad, it's just that they've grown up with totally different challenges, and see laypeople very differently. Break_line: So, non-attachment is just another way of living. It could be another way of living fully, freely in the world. Does that make sense to you? It's very important to know what you want. If you're not sure, of course you're going to be fall prey to all the different vulnerabilities that are part of this. Questioner: I think that’s why I asked the question at this point. Before I came here, I think that was…my attitude towards my mind was what am I even doing? And then I felt like…that form is form. Larry: Yeah, exactly. Questioner: Or that to be too attached to it, or too repelled by it, or pushed away. That they're both forms of connection. Larry: Yes. Questioner: And then to simply, move forward like this morning, I was enjoying just being immersed because the weather was changing, being immersed in, being immersed, and delighted by the change that happens all the time. I felt that for me was that simple reminder, of course everything can be changed and delighted in and yet it's that formless quality that I bring to it. That’s one of the changes of non-attachment. An essential form of it. Not attached to whatever form. Although you participate. Larry: Okay, yes. Break_line: Let me just close because I think I don't want us to talk too much. The retreat is still very much with us. As I understand what you're saying, you're getting at a very, very subtle point in our practice, which is really if you get attached to form, you'll suffer. If you get attached to emptiness, you'll suffer too. In other words, if you get attached to formlessness the truth is, form is here to stay. We need form and emptiness or formlessness. And it's a very delicate and that's what nonattachment is. It's not getting stuck anywhere. Let me give you… many monks know this. They know it really well. So even within the monk's life, they can come to a point. Break_line: For example, there's a Zen master, Chinese Zen master who was dying. And they have a tradition that before the teacher dies, he'll give one last dharma talk and the whole community comes together. So that was happening. And as you know, monks are not supposed to be attached to food. So, they'll even reflect on the repulsiveness of food sometimes, just to use food, just to stay healthy. But no more. So, the whole community, they asked him what he wanted at the end. And so, he said, could you go into town and get me a bag of my favorite cookies? So, someone did, and he's sitting, and everyone's waiting for his last Dharma talk, all these people. And he just takes the cookie, bites into it. He says, delicious. And falls over dead. Okay, now you can see what he's tries saying, you know, you see what I mean, what he's saying? So, there are a lot of subtle twists in this. You can get attached to anything, you know, to stillness, you know, to then the opposite of stillness. Break_line: And so, it's our practice is constantly seeing through these things that cause problems. Can we learn that if we're fortunate enough to have good companionship, or a good meal, or a very nice place to stay, to be able to fully appreciate that, fully experience it, enjoy it, and when it's gone, for it to be gone, it's okay. And when we have to do without, for us to be able to do that, for us to be strong enough to do without, no big deal. It seems to me that's some of the things we have to learn, some of our path is that. End_time: 00:55:28
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