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The Quarterly Newsletter of The Zen Center of Denver
Lotus in the Flame Temple
Winter 1998

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It's Not Going To Get Any Better
A morning talk given by Sensei during the October 1997 sesshin.

The first three or four days of sesshin can be very difficult. This is not only because of the physical pain, fatigue, and drowsiness which we have to put up with; the pain is much more profound than that. When we face the wall, we face ourselves nakedly. We face our fears, anxieties, loneliness, doubts, and disappointments. We face our humanness, "all that flesh is heir to," the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Zazen does not create mind states; it uncovers what is already there. When we come to sesshin we deny ourselves our network of escapes and have to face our lives being spelled out in front of us. This is indeed painful.

On the fourth day of a sesshin at the San Francisco Zen Center when the participants were having these usual problems, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi came into the zendo and said, "The problems you are now experiencing will continue for the rest of your life." Can you accept this? Can you accept your life just as it is? I might add that not only is it not going to get any better, it is going to get worse. We have old age, sickness and death to face. As the late actress Betty Davis said not long before her death, "Old age is not for sissies."

If there is anyone in this zendo who can accept their lives just as they are, who can accept "all that flesh is heir to" completely, unconditionally, without any resistance, then you are to be congratulated. Your training is at an end. You have accomplished the Great Matter. You have closed the gap, there is no separation. You are free. You may leave the sesshin

The rest of us have our work cut out for us. We do not reach that place of true quiet, where we are thoroughly at rest, by running away from reality. We cannot escape reality anyway. We can avoid facing it for a while but it always comes back to drop us in our tracks. We reach that place of eternal serenity by practicing relentlessly right into the moment to moment circumstances of our lives just as they are. We grow beyond the small mind of fear and resistance by courageously facing and accepting ourselves just as we are.

This is hard work, but it is wonderful work. The problems we are experiencing now will continue for the rest of our lives. It is not going to get any better. We can face them now, accept and resolve our problems at a very deep level, or we can spend the rest of our lives running from them.

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