You are what you are seeking!

This is basically the morning reflection I gave during this morning's sitting at the recent Leadership Pilgrimage [http://www.seton.net/locations/cove/]. I was urging the participants to see that they are no different from anyone else, and that they are completely capable of awakening to what every other person has realized throughout history. You are what you are seeking! Flint As we sample teachings form many of the great Wisdom Traditions, have you ever asked yourself, “Where does the wisdom come from? What is the source of these incredible teachings? What is the wellspring from which all of this flows?” It comes from just this – sitting in silence, stillness, and receptivity – having stopped – waiting; but a waiting that is not passive and barren, but a stopping and waiting that is spacious, attentive, and receptive to everything; a profound readiness. Despite the often-dramatic stories of the lives of these teachers of the past, you are doing exactly what they did, meeting exactly what they met, in the silence and stillness. And do you also wonder what kinds of people these sages and saints were? They were people exactly like you. Not similar - exactly. Human - both vulnerable and resilient - subject to birth and death. You have everything you need to realize what they realized. You have a body, a mind, relationships, and the weight of conditioning to wrestle with just like they did. All the ingredients are present. These ingredients have always been present and they will remain present for the rest of your life. They will never leave you and have never been apart from you from the very beginning. You can rely on this. The actual reality of your circumstances is much more reliable than anything you think about your circumstances. Use the reality of each moment as your teacher. Your ideas and ideals may very well be disappointed, but you will never be failed. By sitting here this morning you have made a choice – you have taken your seat - and that decision to sit in silence and stillness, will generate a response – you will be met in some way – in ways that will, at times, be obvious and in other ways which will be less obvious, but which will move you nonetheless. The responses you receive may appear supportive or obstructive, entangling or releasing, but you can’t know their meaning all at once. You have to see it through, and that seeing through sometimes looks dark and fearful, and sometimes bright and encouraging. The central choice made by the teachers of the past, and the choice available to you, is whether you will continue under all conditions – the very definitions of practice – the one thing you do under all conditions, as the great Zen teacher Katagiri Roshi used to say. If you think you are not like our ancestors, and you lack something – that is an interesting and problematic dream. If you think you are special and elevated with this realization – that is another interesting and equally deluded dream. This same reminder is echoed in Dogen’s Eihei Koso Hotsuganmom: "Before buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we. Enlightened people of today are exactly as those of old." The Buddha was very disappointing to those interested in theology. He didn’t give us anything to believe in, nor offer metaphysics to explain the universe. He was only interested in one thing – suffering. His insights and practices were in response to this concern – how is suffering caused and how can it be ended? His first teachings were about what he discovered regarding suffering and his final teachings were a reminder that each person can have the same insights and the same freedom as he. Each person only needs to make the choice to practice and discover these things for themselves. Here is a contemporary and poetic translation of the first teachings of the Buddha – the Four Noble Truths – first used by Joko Beck at the San Diego Zen Center and still used at Ordinary Mind in Austin. Caught in the self-centered dream, only suffering. Holding to self-centered thoughts, exactly the dream. Each moment, life as it is, the only teacher. Being just this moment, compassion’s way. We can actually wake up from the self-centered dream just as our ancestors did. We can come to note the ways in which we cling to the dream as if it were reality in the same way that they did. We can turn to meet each moment as a never-ending source of wisdom, and in the relaxation of conditioning, allow compassion to flow. This is the human possibility – maybe the human responsibility.