So many are saying Where is God when I need him? Especially today. Many feel deserted and alone. But it is only that we have been looking in the wrong direction, searching everywhere but at home. The surprising answer to the question tells us instead, that all we need is right here with us in our everyday life. In fact it is right at the kitchen table. It is only that we have been looking elsewhere, searching all around. These episodes offer specific ways in which we can encounter God, fulfillment, enlightenment right here in our daily lives, wherever we go.
We're always waiting for things to be fulfilled, for the job to be over, for good news to arrive, or for our long wait to be over, for our needs to be met. As a Zen Master saw his driven students, pushing and striving for results, he always said to them, "Not Yet." However much they strained and hoped, he always simply shook his head and said, "Not yet." Some took this to mean they were failures, would never make the grade. But that's not it. There's a wonderful secret to this remark, and once we discover it, so much pressure and futile efforting disappears on its own. And to our amazement, when we run into the Zen Master, he won't say Not Yet again.
Good morning, good morning. It's Brenda Shinshoshana back with another episode of Zen Wisdom for Your Everyday Life. And what a life, what a life it is, indeed. Actually, when seen through a certain pair of eyes, the life is absolutely magnificent, marvelous, startling, beautiful, endless. When seen through another pair of eyes, oh no, not another day to get through. Both of those eyes work together somehow. The right eye, the left eye. The eye of limitation, the eye of me, me, me, how is it going to work out for me? Will I get what I want? Probably not. Probably not, because what do you want, you don't even know what you really, really, really deeply want, and neither do I. What we think we want, what we think we grab at, what we think we're longing for is not it at all. What a shock. It's a shocking moment when we realize that. Because we can put months, years, lifetimes into trying to get that or work it out or achieve something, and then we achieve it. And we may be very thrilled and happy for a while. And then what bubbles up and bubbles up and bubbles up, bubbles up? That feeling of not yet. Not quite. Doesn't fill that sense of hollowness, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep within, which pushes us to go after something else to fill it up. You know, my my Zen teacher, who I adored, and to this day, he's not alive anymore, but he's more alive than ever, actually, working through every bone of my body. He always said to me, not yet. I thought, oh my gosh, not yet. And he would laugh, very strong, in a way tough, but also very sweet. A mixture, a combination of every single thing. So so fantastic. And actually he accepted all parts of himself. Didn't judge them, didn't hate them, just was welcoming everything within himself. And you know what? He also welcomed everybody who came into the Zendo. Everybody. I never once saw him discriminate against anyone or reject anyone or like that. He knew that everyone was part of him and that he also was part of everyone else. It was clear to him. And he had a very odd way of teaching, also, different for each person. And with me, not yet. Maybe he saw that I was too pushing or motivated or wanted to get something from all of this. Hmm. If there was a beautiful sitting, maybe he saw I wanted to hold on to that and have more of it and more of it. Or maybe he saw that I really didn't want anything to go away. Didn't want anything to leave. A beautiful moment. I didn't want it to leave. It was holding on, holding on. You know, we can, excuse me, we can use our practice to hold on, to clutch, to grasp, to what we feel is so-called spiritual or so-called good or kind or whatever it is. That's not Zen practice, though. Zen practice is to let go of all that grasping and demanding and wanting and craving, and just to be there fully for whatever comes, and to let go whatever goes. And it will anyway. Whether or not you agree to that, and mostly we don't, of course, whether or not you agree to the flow of life, it will flow anyway. It'll go in this direction, then that direction, fog will come, sun will come, love will come, despair will come, and they will all go if you let them. If you let them. So, you know, our nature is to look for something solid, including ourselves. We want to be very solid and secure. Well, the only way to be secure is to do what he did. My teacher did. Just sat with it all. Didn't resist or fight it as it flowed in and flowed out. That doesn't mean he didn't get angry. He got angry. And he yelled if he was angry sometimes. And then it was over. He wasn't trying to be a perfect man or a perfect teacher. Because he saw that every moment was perfect just as it was, and that a larger force, a larger wisdom, orchestrated all of it. So he was willing to take the ride and appreciate it as it came to him. That's what he said to me, not yet. It was his way of saying, stop this. Stop it. You can get up at three in the morning and come into the Zenda. You can get up at one in the morning. Stop it. Not yet. It's it'll never be enough. Ten hours a day of sitting, twelve hours a day of sitting. What is it you want? Why? Now we have many answers to what we want on the question, even in practice. Oh, I want to be f free of pain, I want to be enlightened, whatever those words are, whatever they mean to you. Not yet. If we can accept that and just be where we are right now without projecting into the future, this is going to happen, that's gonna happen. If I don't achieve this, I will be a failure, a Zen failure. So many of us dread being a Zen failure. You cannot fail in Zen. You cannot do anything wrong on the cushion. You're just sitting there, and whatever is supposed to happen, happens. Whatever comes up, comes up. Whatever leaves, leaves. You can't do it's not up to you. It happens. And you can't do anything wrong. But the other part of it is you can't do anything right either. It's not up to you. Stop giving yourself a grade every minute. Grading yourself, watching yourself, judging yourself endlessly, endlessly, and criticizing yourself. Objecting to how you are or how you were, or how maybe you will be. No, no, no, no, no, no. Just notice that clamor going on within as you sit still. Just notice it. Not saying to pretend it's not happening, but don't agree with it. Don't go along with it. Don't side with it, just notice it. Uh-huh. One could also say not yet is an urging. More, more, more, more, more, practice, more, more, more. And there was that part of it too. More, more, keep going, going, more, more, more. Because then all of a sudden, if you do more, more, more aside, all of a sudden, that doesn't give you what you want either. Whatever result you're looking for from more, more, more, more, more. Usually, it didn't for me. Better just to sit down and let life live through you. Let Zazen do Zazen. Let the wind blow when it blows. And be be be I would say say yes to everything that comes. Yes, I'm I'm here, I'll experience you now. I was gonna say be grateful, but no, no, there's no prescriptions how we're supposed to feel. Be grateful, be this, be that. That's all talk from the top of the head. A person is as they are, and that is fine at that moment. Don't try to change it. I have to be better, I've got to be grateful. No, just actually when you are able to encompass and embody the moment with no judgments, you will, as a side effect, feel very grateful for the moment. That does happen, but it's not because somebody said to you, Oh no, you're bad, you better be grateful. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not the way it works. Gratitude just bubbles up when we're true to ourselves and to the moment and to one another. Actually, life bursts through when we can be true. That's the whole medicine. True to all the moments that will come to us and that will leave us. Both. Both. You know, we don't want anything to leave ever. Especially me. I probably was one of the most clinging or attached people I know. Not so much clinging to other people, but clinging to my ideas and to the feelings I wanted to have and the way I thought it should be. Oh, I have very, very intense. That's why my teacher kept saying, not yet. Not yet. It isn't the way you think it should be yet. Well, maybe nirvana one day, maybe. So when we we we establish strong pictures of how we want it to be and cling to that. When we do that, we don't know it, but we're setting up trouble for ourselves and probably others as well. Not yet, it's never going to turn into the picture that you demand it turn into. So why not try another way and be available totally and welcoming to the way it is? Well, how can I do that? Because the way it is is absolutely opposite of what I think it should be, or the way I want it to be. Well, it is what it is. Here it is. Why don't you taste it as it is? Taste this. You don't know the first thing about it until you taste it fully. Why don't I just try saying yes? I'm not suggesting that we go along with activities or situations that are against our own inner moral compass. Some people say that Zen is doesn't have a morality, and they they're absolutely wrong. Absolutely. It's the most profound morality of truth, of integrity, of honesty, of simplicity, so we can be with the truth and then express the truth in a moment that's appropriate to do so. In in a way that's also moving to others or touching. That's a very, very important point. That's a subject for a whole different episode. You know, we can cling to right and wrong, but we don't know in the deepest sense what is right. In the deepest sense, because right turns to wrong and wrong turns to right. That's worth really working with as a call on. What is truly truly honest, virtuous, meaning authentic, not playing along or being taken over by some image or by some game. So in Roshi used to say, come before me naked. He wasn't talking about physically naked, he meant take off your rolls, your masks, your game. Just be here with me, bare of ideas, of how the moment should be, of how you should be. Bear of your pretense, free of your pretense. That, by the way, is nirvana. That is deeply fulfilling and deeply beneficial, not just for you, but for everyone you interact with, because your responses come from a much deeper and more beautiful place. So it's raining quite a lot today, and I love to sit with the sound of the rain on the window. Oh my goodness. Every moment that comes can be so beautiful and beneficial. And for somebody else, oh no, there could be flooding. There could be this, there could be that. Each moment, each moment so precious and so variable. Let's try to be each moment fully, whatever our circumstance, whether we're sitting or whether we're clearing up from flooding that happened because of the rain. Each of those circumstances can also give great fulfillment and great joy when we meet them simply and honestly. Thanks very much for listening. Um, the URL for today, for this podcast, as you all guys know, is um wwwzenwisdomtoday.com. And if you wish to contact me or write a little note or better anything at all, my email is topspeaker at yahoo.com. Thank you very much for listening. Have have a beautiful, beautiful day. Bye.
