Depending On No-Thing

I heard it said: “Don’t let circumstances control your happiness. Let your happiness control your circumstances.”

When our perceived needs are not being met we feel unhappy, ill-at-ease. “If only my circumstances (people, place, things) were different…then I could be happy” Clearly, we could say these are expectations. Expectations are premeditated suffering. They are the seeds of discontent that we ourselves plant. Grasping for what “I want” is a pervading cause of discontent and the root of countless problems. Yet, still, we do have actual needs. We cannot ignore our bodies and minds. We need food, clothing, shelter, peace of mind. We must provide for these very real aspects of our existence in order to survive and thrive. How can we “depend on no-thing”?

This koan is not about abandoning our needs. We must care for ourselves, our bodies and minds. What this koan is pointing to is not to make our peace and happiness dependent on things; on what we have now or what we want later, including our thoughts, desires and aversions. These things could be materialistic or tied to specific outcomes in life, work and relationships. This makes our mental state unstable and inconsistent.

If we make our peace and happiness dependent on the external world it will always be fragile like the leaves in the high branches of a tree, blown by any passing wind. What is here today that we cling to in hopes of insuring our peace and happiness will tomorrow, very likely, evaporate like the morning dew. The only thing that doesn’t change is change.

One of my teacher’s favorite metaphors was Empty Sky, a term we hear often in Zen lingo. For a moment, consider the open sky: It holds the sun, the moon, the clouds and the wind, yet it depends on none of these things. It is vast, empty and unchanged by the passing weather. This is the essential nature of shin; heart-mind; our essential nature, which we hopefully realize in Zazen. When we realize the essence of depending on no-thing our mind is free of the grasping that is the cause of our suffering. Our mind indeed can become like the sky, not clinging to the passing weather of thoughts, grasping at the lightning of desires and clinging to the thunder of ideas. When we are free of those things, peace, contentment and happiness naturally arise. Like most things in Zen, it takes vigilance and practice to bring lasting awareness of this state of mind. Zazen is essential.

Letting go is not easy. First, we must bring into our awareness that there is nothing to hold to begin with. The Buddha taught that what we cling to are temporary forms that are transient, impermanent, empty, in Zen terminology. However, awareness, like the sky is always whole, the choice-less emergence of the ground of being. This awareness is always available to us by simply pausing at any time and following our breath. The defensive, ego-centered Self disappears and the reality of being-awareness arises within us. The true self manifests as natural awareness. When we experience the still point in Zazen, that is the true self, the thing that always exists even beyond our wisdom. Free of words, concepts and any-thing we can name with words or frame conceptually.

Depending on no-thing is to experience the world as it is, without attaching our peace and happiness to anything that is transient, empty or you might say, could be lost. It’s an inside job. It is bringing into mind the stability of the true self that we momentarily realize in Zazen and letting that fill us throughout our days and nights. In doing so, we never find ourselves lacking. The peace and happiness we seek is a result of letting go of the things, ideas and beliefs that keep us tethered to our own discontent.

_{One Mountain}

_{Still water}

_{Empty Sky}

_{No Gate.}

_{Deep Peace & Great Love, Issan}

Schedule 9/22-28

Wednesday, 6:30am: Zazen and Dokusan, Issan

Friday 6:30am: Zazen, Dokusan, Dharma Share, Zenho

Zenho’s Dharma Talk, 9/20/2024: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10QeiJkb4Za9eL9RmmKWYVMsQS4X5Nc_r/view?usp=sharing

Noah’s Poem

I awake in bed of thoughts and turns

And yet the morning arrives gently

I go outside

And am greeted

By sunlight and shadows on waving leaves

And squawks and chirps and distant traffic 

I sit in nook in tree 

I see garbage on the ground 

And I don’t pick it up

I wonder about shame and should’s

And if the earth is mad at me (*As in, she is feeling anger arise and has a story that it’s because I didn’t pick up the trash perhaps related to something that happened to her in childhood idk.)

And I think way too much (judgment!) about gender and what is this desire to be feminine to be woman

Sometimes New York feels like a large theater 

And back and forth I swing 

Hide and seek with myself

Or whoever else is watching–

 
~Noah Seltzer