Third day of sesshin, encouraging practitioners
I always feel this kind of sitting practice is like the root of a tree, or foundation of a building, very invisible. It's supposed to be invisible. Nothing very splendid happens.
Connecting physical sensation to the nature of pain
This living human being, human body, contains burning energy. This must be the reason we experience pain. When you touch a hot thing, you say, "Ouch!" When a burning flame comes close, you say, "Oh, it hurts!" When your life is facing the same kind of intensity, that must be what causes pain.
Interpreting Buddha's first teaching on suffering
Buddha's first sermon was "All beings are nothing but pain." He is saying life, itself, is in pain. He is not looking down from a high, peaceful place at the suffering people below.
On the inversions of human desire
In the case of relationships, we have been conditioned to want a long relationship with another being, instead of a temporary one. Instead of a transient life, we want eternal life; instead of continuous pain, we want a joyful, pleasant life; instead of nothing, we want to have something. Those are the impossible things we want while what is possible is all the things we don't want.
Characterizing Buddha's teaching style
So Buddha was a "twisting" teacher. Instead of promising eternal life, he pointed out how fragile, how transient and how impossible is the life we have got.
On the fundamental nature of dualism
A human being is a very complicated existence. From ancient times we have been struggling with dualism, which can be described as the recognition of our reality at the same time as we long for perfection.
The bodhisattva response to dualism
Instead, you remember your bodhisattva nature, and over and over again you plunge into the suffering world without hesitation.
Redefining Mara as internal, not external
Mara is not something frightening, a fierce warrior who comes to cut your neck and split you in half. Rather, Mara dwells in the unknowing being which is you, and in the end you are completely lost.
Mara as our basic human needs, not evil forces
Without sleep an army of exhaustion, dullness, denseness, sleepiness, comes. That is Mara. Without sleep, we can hardly recover life. Without food we can hardly sustain this life. Without sexual desire, we are unable to continue generations. Without being known by others, we cannot sustain this life. Nothing is wrong with these needs, so we have a great army within us.
Warning against attachment to purity
If you settle on an answer, and feel that is the end of your questioning, that is not so good. You find you have to let go of your vigorous effort to maintain purity, because with purity, dry simplicity comes, where there is almost no life.
The non-dual nature of Buddha's sitting
Buddha's sitting is beyond pure and impure, holy and unholy. It is not something you understand. It's indescribable.