The Zen Studies Podcast

The Parable of the Burning House is one of five main parables of the Lotus Sutra, a classic Mahayana Buddhist text. I go through the parable paragraph by paragraph, stopping to reflect on each part of the story along the way and encouraging you to imagine yourself within the story as if it were a dream. I finish up by discussing the relevance of this teaching for our everyday lives and practice.

Whether you are personally intrigued by the concept of enlightenment or not, it is absolutely central to Buddhism. However, enlightenment – to use a kind of corny phrase – is not what you think. I discuss sudden and gradual experiences of enlightenment, the changes such experiences bring about in us, and why it's important for all of us to seek enlightenment.

Humans evolved to make sense of their experience by explaining with a story, or narrative. Although our stories help us communicate and navigate our lives, they also can preoccupy and burden us. Sometimes they are distressing, depressing, or exhausting to maintain. This is why the Buddha said to train ourselves such that "in the sensed, there is only the sensed, in the cognized, only the cognized." That is, we should train ourselves to experience things without our stories.

The practice of vow is central in Buddhism, as I've discussed before. Vows – alternatively aspirations, intentions, or commitments, formal or informal – are a conscious choice we make about the kind of life we want to live, and the kind of person we want to be. Clarifying the vows we are already living, and the vows we still want to take on, can help give direction and meaning to our lives.

How do we create a strong and sustainable Buddhist practice outside of a monastery? We create structure for ourselves and build good habits, but then the circumstances of our lives change. There are many competing demands on our attention and time. We have to mostly rely on our own self-discipline instead of social support. The key is giving our practice form but also accepting that it will constantly change, like learning to shape clay on a potter's wheel.

All religions and spiritual practices have one purpose: To relieve our suffering and give us hope. As Buddhists we sometimes emphasize "relieving suffering" and leave it unsaid that, after being freed from your suffering, you will perceive things in a way that gives you hope, inspiration, and solace. The Buddhist teaching of suchness arose a couple hundred years after the Buddha to address the need some of us feel to hear descriptions of the positive aspect of reality from the beginning of our practice.

Despite the placid appearance of most Buddha statues and the Buddhist precept against indulging anger, there is a place for fierceness and compassionate anger in Buddhism. Especially when we're faced with injustice or need to protect others, we may need the energy of anger or fierceness to make ourselves heard. I discuss how respect for appropriate fierceness and anger appears in Buddhist iconography and mythology.

Many American cities are on fire - literally - as tensions over systemic racism erupt. How do we enact our bodhisattva vows in the face of all of this suffering - caused by racism, the global pandemic, the breakdown of earth's natural life support systems, and global heating? Our vow is to "save all beings" but - at least in terms of an individual's goal - that is impossible. How do we honor our bodhisattva vow in a vital and authentic way, as opposed to it being a largely irrelevant ideal?

Grief is love in the face of loss; do you want to stop loving in order to stop feeling grief? Of course not. But we also don't want to be controlled or overwhelmed by it. There are a number of Buddhist practices that can help us as we practice with grief – trying to face it, and making sure we don't impede our own grief process. What I'll share in this episode isn't by any means a developed or exhaustive process of grief work, it's just a short list of Buddhist practices that can be beneficial.

Shikantaza, or the practice of "just sitting," can be challenging. We're asked not to try to control our meditative experience, but are we just supposed to sit there like a sack of potatoes and let habit energy have its way? I present a simple approach to returning to your intention whenever you have a moment of awareness in your sitting, and making that intention very simple and free from expectation of results. We simply intend four "S's": To sit upright, still, silent, and simply be.