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Suchness and Beauty

The Buddha and the Flower

So, welcome everyone here in person and online. I appreciate so much the chance to come together for this purpose that we have and to share the Dharma now. With this pandemic we've had, it's been two years since I've taught my unusual intro to meditation class. I would sometimes teach it two or three times a year, and maybe since it's been so long, I'd like to do a demonstration that I often do at the end of the intro class. Some of you have seen it, but I think it will be done a little bit differently than usual, and it has to do with holding up a flower.

There is an important Zen story that the Zen tradition began when the Buddha held up a flower and a particular monk, Mahākāśyapa^[1], smiled. The Buddha saw the smile and then recognized him as a successor, a teacher, and he then passed the lineage on down through the centuries until it came to the modern world. This little story is a little bit of a kōan^[2]—a contemplative question for everyone. Why did the Buddha just hold up a flower, and why did the monk smile? Why was his smiling so significant?

I can't exactly answer that, or maybe this talk is an answer to it, but I just appreciate so much that when we see this flower, maybe we see the suchness of the flower. The flower is being held up by itself, and so it is alone. It's just the flower. It's a nasturtium, as some of you might know, and it has a particular color and number of petals, and it is just allowed to be itself in the moment. One way of talking about that is to call it the suchness of the flower. It just is itself.

The Comparative Mind

But I can do something interesting with it. I could hold up another flower. Maybe it's so small you can't see it so well, but there's a little yellow flower next to the nasturtium. And now we can say something we couldn't say before: we can say that the nasturtium is the big flower, and this little composite is the small flower.

Now it's not just the suchness of the flower by itself; the suchness now exists in our minds in relationship to the other flower. I am pretty confident that these flowers, if they looked at each other, are not thinking about each other, and are not comparing each other. It doesn't occur to one that, "I'm the big one," and, "Oh no, I'm the small one." It is just the suchness of the flower.

But then we could do something very interesting again. I could put down the small flower and I can pick up this flower, a rose. Now something very interesting has happened. What was the big flower before has now become the small flower. You bring up a big rose next to the nasturtium, and the nasturtium is a smaller flower. That contrast, that comparison of the two of these flowers, does not exist in the flower itself. It is a provisional interpretation. It's a provisional label that comes out of the comparative mind that sees one as being different than the other. So, what was big has now become small.

A tremendous amount of human suffering comes from comparisons. Comparing ourselves to ideals: we don't live up to ideals, or we do live up to them and now everyone else should, but other people are not living up to them. People compare themselves to each other. Sometimes the comparison is that I'm not as much X as someone else. Someone else says that, "I'm more U than you," like the letter U.

Then there is a tremendous amount of suffering when it is projected onto other people—that people are somehow wrong and bad because of something about them. Because they're old, people use ageism. People who are older will often comment on how they're now ignored or not treated well, or sometimes they're treated in ways that they wish they weren't because they're seen in some kind of category of being old and incapable. People compare because of their size. There is comparison of people's hair color, the length of their hair, the kind of hair, skin color, ethnicity—all kinds of things that people do to compare each other and make judgments about the value of one over another.

We compare ourselves to who we were before. "Before I was young and now I'm not, and I wish I was still young." Or, "Now I'm not as much of a Z as I was before," whatever Z stands for. "Now I'm wrinkled," and rather than accept it, we think, "Well, beautiful people don't have any wrinkles whatsoever." I grew up with a friend of my parents, a woman who apparently never smiled because she was attempting not to get any wrinkles.

The Suchness of the Human Being

But what about the suchness of the human being? What about your suchness? Is there such a thing where you can be held up like a flower, and you're allowed just to be as you are in the perfection of suchness, in the simplicity of suchness, without any comparisons at all? What's the beauty of each of us, of each of you? In what way are you a flower? In what way are you perfect, wonderful as you are, and is that valuable?

Is that somehow sentimental or Pollyannish, or not really realistic, because we should be comparing ourselves? Or those comparisons are real—or they're not real, but they're imposed on me. The world around me is constantly making comparisons, and I don't feel safe in the world because of what people are doing and their comparisons against me. So, to emphasize the suchness of us, maybe that just allows the status quo to be there, and the status quo is harmful.

Is that the case, or is there some valuable way where we can appreciate our own suchness? Can we gaze upon ourselves in such a way that the gaze does not have any comparative thinking? We're not compared to before, to after, to even ideals—even wonderful ideals. We're not compared to other people. It's just the simplicity of who we are, in a way that maybe we allow the flower to be itself.

Now, it's possible in the course of flowers being flowers, and maybe beginning to gather its forces together to focus on making seeds, that a wind comes along and it blows off a petal. Now we have something new in this world that maybe wasn't as clear as before. Now we have the suchness of the petal, and the petal is just allowed to be itself, a beautiful petal just by itself.

Another option is to look at the flower that's still here and believe that the essence of a flower, what we have to maintain at all costs, are the petals—all the petals. And if a flower loses a petal, it's no longer perfect; it's no longer right. But is that the case? It is the natural course of things that the petals fall off and a seed is made. Why do we carry with us the idea that the perfectly full and blossomed flower with all its petals is the only suchness of the flower?

Can't it be that as it begins to lose its petals, it's just as much in its suchness as it was before? This rose that came from here at the grounds of IMC^[3] is already withering up. Maybe you can't see it here, but some of the petals are beginning to curl up and turn brown, and they're probably going to fall off soon. It's possible to see it as starting to become ugly. It's possible.

But is there a way of seeing this that is seeing it neither as ugly nor as beautiful, just the suchness of it? Or is it possible to see beauty in its decay? After all, it's just the natural process taking its course. The suchness of it. Maybe everything is beautiful in its suchness. Maybe wrinkles are beautiful. I've seen people with exquisite faces full of cobweb wrinkles, and I literally thought, "Wow, that is beautiful." There's something special about it. And I've seen people with just a little bit of wrinkles—wow, that's beautiful. And I've seen faces with no wrinkles—wow, that's beautiful. Why not see it all as beautiful? Why do we have these judgments, these comparisons, these ideas?

Selecting Parts Out of the Whole

If we take a flower—let's take another one, let's take this one—and we single one part of the flower out as being the most important part, as being the thing that really counts. We're going to protect that at all costs, and we're going to be upset if it's not there anymore. Maybe for this flower, what's most important is that it is supported by these beautiful green leaves. But then someone comes along and takes it, or it falls off, and we think, "But, but, but that's what made the flower a flower!"

Or maybe it's a long stem. Maybe the length of the stem, the longer it is, is what makes a flower a successful flower. But then somehow or other, the flower is made shorter. "Oh no! I was so attached to it being long; that's what really made it a flower." And then the petals start falling off for the people who thought that petals were the essence, the most important part of the flower. "Let's glue it back on! They sell petals at the local craft store, and it's important to make the flower perfect, so let's go buy some other petals and glue them on when they're falling off."

These are all kind of silly examples, but don't we do this to ourselves? Aren't we judging ourselves and selecting parts of ourselves out as being what's important, what needs to be held up and made to be the way it is? But aren't we innocent in making these comparisons? Or maybe isn't it inevitable we do this when the world around us is doing it? The social world, the people, the advertisements—they're all doing it. They're all holding up a certain way that's supposed to be the ideal and the right way, and then people behave that way.

People do judge each other. If they're judging each other, they might judge me. And if they're judging me, then I don't feel safe, so I better figure out the right length of hair that an acceptable person is supposed to have. I better figure out the right something, this and that. People do make adjustments to themselves. I know people, like myself, who have moved between cultures, and there were different standards. Then you figure out, "How do I fit in here? What is expected? What clothes, what ways of speaking, what ways of being?" and all kinds of things.

Once we get into this complicated social world, it's sometimes difficult not to be pulled into this world of selecting parts out of the whole. Maybe it's a reason to protest. Maybe it's a reason to stand up and point these kinds of terrible things out that go on. But what about the suchness? Is that going to be eclipsed? Does that never have a place? Is there a time and place where we can appreciate the suchness of ourselves, of the flower, or the situation, the suchness of a moment in time? Or are we always on the treadmill that keeps going on and on, of the mind involved in the activity of comparative thinking? The mind involved in not seeing the simplicity of the moment, seeing how much suchness is here in some wonderful way?

Gazing Upon the Suchness

The treadmill is kind of going and going and going, churning away, thinking, wondering. I think sometimes meditators, especially when they begin—or maybe it can happen anytime—it's possible to be in awe at the treadmill in which the mind is just thinking, in comparisons, stories, ideas, and concerns. The thoughts just keep going and going. But it's not necessary to live that way all the time. Just like it's important to eat meals, it's usually not a good idea to eat non-stop. But the mind somehow can go non-stop, just churning away.

Even if some of that churning and thinking and reflection is important, it doesn't need to be all continuous. We come to meditation, I think, not just to calm ourselves down. It's possible to come to meditation to gaze upon the suchness of ourselves, which I'd like to propose is beautiful. To be able to gaze upon the beauty of who we are, which is that which is most natural about being a human being. What is that? This rose, which is decaying, turning brown, is in the suchness of it all. I look upon it with a certain reverence and beauty as it ages and gets brown. Of course it will. Why does beauty only reside in the full peak vitality of the rose?

One of the fascinating and important ways in which suchness can be seen is with a mind that is not caught up in unskillful states of mind. A mind that's not caught up in these comparisons that are driven by fear, ill will, greed, vanity, conceit, jealousy—a whole spectrum of ways in which we get caught in a mind that's tense, contracted, and attached to something. Selecting something out of the whole as being what's important, and having some idea that it has to be a particular way.

The mind that can see suchness is the mind that is not caught in all these mental states of attachment. That is a beautiful mind. That's a mind that's as beautiful as looking out across the ocean view here in California from the beach and seeing the beauty of the ocean. Looking at Half Dome in Yosemite, looking down into the Grand Canyon, looking up into the night sky and seeing the constellations and stars. There are times we look at the natural world, and we're in awe, and it's beautiful.

But to look into our own mind, to look into our own being, and marvel at that as much as we would at the world outside—to be able to see our mind as beautiful... they should probably make it a protected national monument! Maybe the next time the Park Service makes a National Park, it should be the suchness of everyone's minds. The mind that is not caught up in these concepts and comparative thinking is a phenomenally beautiful thing, this mind, this heart.

And to see the world with that beautiful mind, that beautiful heart, allows us then to see the suchness of other people, their beauty as they are. We look at the rose that's decaying, and it's a beautiful rose. Maybe we want to bow down to the rose, it's so beautiful. We have a reverence and care. The ability to see the beauty, see the suchness of things. I've been to the bedside of someone who had died, and it was profoundly beautiful in the suchness of it. Is it okay to say that? I'd probably be careful to say that if the relatives are all quite upset and grieving; I might not say it then. But is there something about seeing everything in this life—except those things that are driven by hatred, driven by greed, driven by delusion or attachment—do they belong to the world of suchness? In some ways they do.

But they are born from an inability to appreciate the suchness of life. They are born from a mind that doesn't see the beauty of itself. They're born from hearts that are withered, contracted, and in pain, and so they don't have the ability to touch into, or be resting in, or be grounded in this beautiful quality of our life. Everything is beautiful when it is free of greed, hatred, and delusion^[4], but a lot of it depends on how your mind is, the ability to see it.

If we're looking out and expecting to see the beauty and suchness, and appreciate that in the world without somehow finding it in ourselves, it's probably not so stable or so accurate. So, Buddhist meditation is a way of coming into ourselves to set ourselves free of our attachments and our clinging. Not so that we just are detached, but so that we can appreciate and see the beautiful suchness of this world where there's no clinging, no grasping, no hatred. And then we can start being the suchness. There is acting and living in the world from the suchness, with the suchness. What is that like? It is a life which is free—free of attachment.

For me, this whole movement of mindfulness and meditation is such a phenomenally wonderful thing. We're doing something I almost have a deep reverence for, like I do for the night sky, looking into the amazement of it, or beautiful scenery in the natural world. Or taking the time to walk in the garden and see the flowers, appreciate each flower for itself. Or take the time to see a hummingbird, the incandescent color and the flittering around; it's so beautiful. It takes time to stop and appreciate the suchness of our mind, the suchness of the world. And then we're available to live a wiser life. What a wonderful thing to live a life that comes out of that recognition of suchness, recognition of beauty that is so easily overlooked in ourselves and others in this world.

It's overlooked when our attention becomes excessively selective: it's only about how long the stem is, it's only about the full complement of petals being there. It's only about some aspect of it that we hold on to: "This is what it's about. This is who I have to be. This is what I'm about."

The One Who is Thus

There are a few mentions in the ancient teachings of the Buddha of people who are just such—the suchness of themselves. The Buddha most frequently refers to himself not as the Buddha, not by his given name Gautama, but he refers to himself as the Tathāgata^[5]. It is an ancient title that probably preceded the Buddha. No one quite knows what it means, but it's a compound of two words. They don't quite know which two words because of how the letters in compound words can merge. But my favorite interpretation of it is that it means "the one who is thus." The Buddha is the one who is thus, the one who is such.

Imagine that you go up to the Buddha and think, "He seems like an unusual guy." So you ask him, "Who are you? What are you about?" You have your notebook out; you're going to write down notes because, after all, you don't get to talk to the Buddha that often. And he says, "I am thus. I am such. I am the suchness of this." Would you be irritated, or would you appreciate it? Wow. Rather than picking and choosing parts and defining who he is in some particular way, he is just not defining himself. He's just there, and what is apparent is there. He's not going to define it any more than the suchness of it.

Here are a few quotes, verses. If you see the selective process that doesn't see the suchness as one that has an opinion about things, a story about things, a view of how things are, then maybe you'll appreciate this poem:

One who is attached argues over doctrines. How and with what does one argue with someone unattached? Embracing nothing, rejecting nothing, right here, a person has shaken off all abuse.

So there's a time sitting in meditation where it makes a lot of sense to embrace nothing and reject nothing, if what we want to do is to see the fullness, the wholeness of the suchness of this moment.

Here's another verse:

They aren't enemies to anything seen, heard, or thought out. How in this world could one have assumptions about those who see in this way, whose conduct is open?

People who are not opposed to anything that they see or hear, or anything that's thought out, any opinions—if they don't have that, how could you make assumptions about them? How can you define them? These are people whose conduct is open. I guess you get what you see. You see with how they conduct themselves, how they are in their suchness.

And one more:

One does not construct, prefer, or take up any doctrine. A sage is not led by precepts or religious practices, is someone who has gone beyond, who does not depend on beliefs. It is someone who is thus.

Someone who is thus. So why did the Buddha hold up a flower, and why did the monk smile? Can you hold yourself up in such a way that you smile in your thusness, your suchness?

I certainly hope that you can gaze upon yourself in such a way, be present for yourself in such a way, with a mind that's quiet enough from its attachments, its fears, its desires, so that you can gaze upon this beautiful being that you are in its suchness. And then to look upon others, every other person, with reverence and care and respect. That we can come to see the suchness of them as they are. What a great world it would be if we loved and respected people just as they are, in a world where we don't see through the filter of greed, hatred, and delusion.

Thank you very much, my friends, my friends and flowers. We've been a bouquet here today, and the individual flowers are just as wonderful in the bouquet as they are apart. May you take your wonderfulness with you through the day. Thank you.