Dharma Talks

The fifth season invites us to be disillusioned in the most beautiful way. We realize there is nothing special, and yet everything is sacred. To use the bicycle image, here’s where the bicycle is put down; we know how to use it and can ride it again. We’ve come full circle, with no attachment to any insight. As we sit in zazen, we explore the edges of emptiness. How many things are burned up in a lifetime of practice?

As soon as we have some sort of insight or opening—small or large—we risk disappointment with the imperfection and messiness of the world of the particular. The states of mind that open the heart and feel so life-changing don’t necessarily become traits of character. These require long and slow cultivation. If you come to see the beauty of this fourth season, you’ll taste true freedom. No need to dodge when blades are crossed.

The promise of the third season is whole-hearted practice without an agenda. The third season describes moments of kensho, when we deeply realize the emptiness beyond self. In the bicycle metaphor, it is the moment when we take the hands off the handlebars and know that we keep going. No choreography, no separate self, no words.

What is whole-heartedness in practice? As beginners, we often practice for the sake of the self and its suffering. Tozan’s second Cycle of Merit poem (Kokun Goi) invites us into the season of practicing for others. We realize it is not just about the self, but that we are part of a larger flow of practice. Let us go further into the jumbled peaks.

As we let go of our usual pressing forward, our usual dominant mind, we see that something comes to meet us. Form and reflection behold each other. One of the practices of this season is to look, really look, and forget what we know.