Good morning.
So we've spent the month of August exploring the self-writing nature of the Dharma and I wanted to bring this theme to where it's particularly challenging,
Where the mind is stubborn and inflexible.
Stubbornness has a very unyielding quality and it's a form of clinging.
Stubbornness usually springs from our attachment to our views,
The view that we're right,
The attachment to the self-image that I won't back down or the aversion that has us say something like I refuse to accept this.
The Buddha's teaching often warn against fixed views.
He encouraged us to question even his own teaching.
He said see for yourself rather than to hold tightly to your own opinions or to the opinions of others.
In many Buddhist teachings stubbornness is compared to something hard and rigid and heavy like a stone and there is a teaching story that actually illustrates this called the stubborn stone that I'd like to share with you.
Story goes that a long time ago in a village there was a path that led to the monastery and on the path lay a heavy stone.
It was half buried in the earth.
Travelers cursed it and farmers kicked at it and children stubbed their toes on it yet no one moved it.
Everyone simply said that stone is too stubborn it will never change.
Well one day a young monk sat down beside it and instead of fighting with the stone he simply placed his hand on it and he breathed and he came every day and sometimes he'd sit in silence and sometimes he'd pour a little water over it and the villagers laughed at him and said something like you can't soften a stone with kindness.
Well the seasons passed and rain and water pooled where the the monk had kind of created a well around the stone and slowly soil gathered in the cracks and moss began to grow and the once sharp and jagged edges kind of grew round and children no longer hurt themselves on it and they began to sit on it and play and flowers rooted in the soil around it and the stone became part of a little garden on the path.
So when travelers passed they no longer cursed it some of them even stopped to rest kind of leaning their burdens on the stone and the villagers finally asked the monk like why why did you spend so much time with this stubborn rock and he smiled and he said the stone is our mind.
If we meet it with anger it only hardens if we meet it with patience kindness and water even the hardest stone becomes a resting place for all.
So the stubborn stone is part of that part of us that refuses to soften the inner resistance these fixed views and the Buddhist teaching it doesn't tell us to smash the stone but to patiently allow mindfulness and patience and compassion to wear the stone down.
What was once an obstacle can turn into support for the path.
So over years of practice what was once rigid and immovable you know symbolically our mind with its fixed views and its narrow views and its beliefs of what is right and what is wrong they become smoother smooth like a pebble you know smooth down by the water of the Dharma.
The Dharma is often symbolized as water you know it's yielding and adaptable but also strong strong enough to wear down the hardest rock over time.
So stubbornness is something that I'm familiar with we sort of joke about it in our household that everyone in our family is stubborn including our dogs and it's wild to watch how this unfolds in conversation when awareness is strong you know when awareness isn't strong I'm just caught up in my view.
It's like all these righteous views are just firing all at once and you know attachment to views it feels a lot like hostility.
I see this a lot with people who are aging you know at some point for many people the body isn't functioning as steadily or as skillfully as it used to and instead of accepting help from others it's like the aging person digs digs their heels in and resists help like the message being that you know they feel controlled by others helping or they're fiercely holding on to the perception that their autonomy is being taken away and somehow by helping you're taking away their autonomy their freedom but you know your body could be paralyzed unmovable you could be spending your life in a wheelchair and your mind can be free that's available like your body can be deteriorating and your mind can be free and needing and accepting help is actually more about understanding our interconnectedness and releasing that self-centered mind that's just resisting change.
I want to close with a quote from the Theravada Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu who wrote many many books has many books written and this was in one of his in one of his books.
He writes,
Respect for the Dharma means realizing that you don't have to suffer and it's your choice.
Do you want to continue feeding in ways that give rise to suffering or do you have respect for the alternative where you don't have to suffer?
This requires swallowing some of your pride but swallowing your pride is a better way of feeding than continuing to feed off your sense of having been wronged.
Actually when you let go of your pride you don't swallow it you spit it out.
So this is what it always comes down to learning to spit out all the unhealthy food that you've been gobbling down.
Do you still want to keep suffering in your rightness or have you had enough?
When you find parts of the mind that resist the Dharma what can you do to soften them up a little bit?
That's a lot of the practice right there.
So I offer these thoughts for your consideration and we'll continue with this exploration of views and flexibility in our next meeting.
Thank you.
