John Pulleyn | January 17, 2024 | 42 minutes
Introduction
Day 4 of the January 2024 Rohatsu sesshin.
Focus: From experiences to experiencing based on Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck.
1. Experiences vs. Experiencing
We usually live through experiences:
"My lunch"
"That person"
"My office"
Each experience is colored by memory, fantasy, hopes, fears.
This builds a dualistic world of:
Subject (me) and object (that)
Attraction and aversion
Problem:
When we believe these labels, we become enslaved to greed, anger, and ignorance.True practice:
Move from having experiences → to pure experiencing—without filters, without past or future.
2. Experiencing is Timeless
In the moment of pure seeing, hearing, tasting:
There’s no “me and it."
There’s only experiencing—fresh, direct, without separation.
Zen phrase:
Peaceful dwelling as change itself liberates all beings and brings great joy.
Pain, for example, isn’t a static thing—it is changing second by second.
Seeing this relieves some of its sting.
3. Pain and Resistance
We think of pain (physical or emotional) as one big static thing.
In truth: Pain fluctuates constantly.
When we stop resisting and become intimate with pain,
its power over us diminishes.Practice:
Programs like Hello Pain help patients witness pain rather than battle it.Key:
Resistance intensifies suffering.
Opening to change frees us.
4. Enlightenment = Experiencing, Not a Grand Experience
Enlightenment isn’t some special, peak "experience."
It’s the ongoing demolition of illusions built on:
Thoughts
Memories
Hopes
Fantasies
Enlightenment is only doing—pure, unadulterated experiencing.
Joko Beck:
We demolish the false structure of our lives by seeing our thoughts 500 times until we realize: they have no substance.
5. Our Defensive Strategies
As children, we each unconsciously build a survival strategy:
Conforming to please.
Attacking to defend.
Withdrawing to avoid.
These strategies become body-based habits:
Tight shoulders, clenched stomachs, shallow breath.
Over time, the strategy becomes our sense of self (ego).
Problem:
Life becomes about testing everything:"Will this person hurt me?"
"Will this situation betray me?"
This perpetual wariness separates us from real life and real love.
6. The Promise That is Never Kept
Most of life feels like a promise that is never fulfilled:
Relationships that start wonderful → disappoint.
Jobs that seem ideal → disillusion.
Why?
Because phenomenal life—built on desires—is inherently unstable and unsatisfying.True practice:
Let go of fantasy structures and meet reality directly.
7. How True Change Happens
Joko Beck references Hubert Benoit's The Supreme Doctrine:
Emotional contraction ("spasm") lies underneath the mind’s noise.
Enlightenment happens when we rest on that hard, cold, unchanging rock—without resistance.
Practice:
Stop chasing thoughts.
Stay with the sensation of life itself—even when painful.
Rest in the “hard but friendly rock” of pure being.
8. The Hard Reality of Practice
Most people avoid the real work.
We prefer thinking, planning, fantasizing.
True practice:
Feels unfamiliar.
Requires courage, patience, and willingness to feel.
Joko Beck:
We would rather be ruined than changed.
We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.
(W.H. Auden)
Closing Reflections
Enlightenment isn’t about becoming extraordinary—
it’s about becoming real.Forgiveness, compassion, and patience must be extended to:
Ourselves.
Everyone else.
True refuge:
Not escaping life, but fully entering it.Final encouragement:
Practice is patient.
Practice is gradual.
Keep going.
Quick Takeaways
Move from experience → to experiencing.
Let pain in instead of resisting it.
Drop strategies of pleasing, attacking, withdrawing.
Practice forgiveness for yourself and others.
Rest in the moment even when it’s uncomfortable.
Keep practicing—it’s gradual but transformational.
