In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Monshin Nannette Overley traces an honest question back to its roots: what is determination, and what is its role in our lives? Beginning with her discomfort over the whip-and-tether imagery in the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures from the Spring Practice Period, Monshin describes the path of her earnest inquiry. She moves through the Lojong training’s instruction to “cultivate a serious attitude” and the Zen pillar of great faith, great doubt, and great determination. These teachings lead her to Diné elder Pat McCabe, who speaks of a beautiful stubbornness rooted to life itself. Monshin brings her own imagery to this deeply rooted nature:

“Determination is a life force. It’s like the seed making its way through the dark soil… because it has to do it. That’s its job.”

Monshin asks us to remember a time in which we embodied great determination. She recalls the great determination of childbirth, a time in which her personal beliefs of effort took a backseat to the raw expression of life’s own determination. Monshin identifies the near enemy of determination as the ego’s exertion of will on the world — encouraging us instead towards a genuine determination as an alignment with life, with vow, with the whole web of being.