Roethke’s Auction, Siddhartha’s Awakening
Offered on December 9th, 2023
This week, I am sharing the text of a Dharma Talk offered during last year’s Rohatsu Sesshin. The title of the talk was Roethke’s Auction, Siddhartha’s Awakening.
The talk uses Roethke’s poem “The Auction” to explore the story of Siddhartha Gautama’s awakening under the Bo Tree more than 2,600 years ago. The talk seems fitting to share again, too, as it continues the theme of “spiritual awakening” from last week’s offering.
You can listen to the talk here:
Enjoy.
Theodore Roethke wrote a poem titled "The Auction." I would like to read it for you:
Once on returning home, purse-proud and hale, I found my choice possessions on the lawn. An auctioneer was whipping up a sale. I did not move to claim what was my own. "One coat of pride, perhaps a bit threadbare; Illusion's trinkets, splendid for the young; Some items, miscellaneous, marked 'Fear'; The chair of honor, with a missing rung." The spiel ran on; the sale was brief and brisk; The bargains fell to bidders, one by one. Hope flushed my cheekbones with a scarlet disk. Old neighbors nudged each other at the fun. My spirits rose each time the hammer fell, The heart beat faster as the fat words rolled. I left my home with unencumbered will And all the rubbish of confusion sold.
We have gathered this weekend, here at O-An Zendo, to practice together and on the occasion of Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment. We have gathered to commemorate the Buddha's awakening under the Bo Tree in Bodh Gaya, India, some 2,600 years ago. We have gathered to remember Siddhartha Gautama's attainment of Buddhahood, the transition that Siddhartha made from wealthy prince, to mendicant home-leaver, to spiritual teacher, born from an unshakeable realization that in this life there is old age, sickness, and death. We have gathered to celebrate the sage of the Shakya clan's determination to practice, search, and study for the benefit of all beings. His practice, search, and study was not in vain; it led to the turning of the Dharma Wheel in this world when he "woke up." We are able to practice today in part because of the great effort that was made by Shakyamuni Buddha.
These are only some of the many descriptions of something that happened a long time ago, in a place far away. Despite their many surface-level differences, they share in common at least the assertion that the man in question—Siddhartha Gautama—was transformed (or: changed) in some way. But in what way? What does it mean to "become enlightened" or to "attain Buddhahood"? What happens when someone "awakens" or "wakes up"? What does it mean to be a spiritual teacher, someone for whom practice, search, and study for the benefit of all beings is central to their orientation in the world?
Once on returning home, purse-proud and hale, I found my choice possessions on the lawn. An auctioneer was whipping up a sale. I did not move to claim what was my own.
Perhaps it begins with returning home. Sometimes "home" is a particular place, a familiar structure from those early, formative years of youth. Sometimes "home" is a special time, one in which certain conditions were present and, because of these, life felt care-and-worry free. Sometimes "home" is your zafu (or: seiza bench or chair) and "returning home" is zazen. We spend a lot of our lives rushing this way and that. We are off to run our errands, to efficiently and quickly check assorted items off our daily, weekly, or monthly to-do list. How often do we stop, though? How often do we, if only for a short period of time, settle down where we are? How often do we return home, to that piece of earth on which our feet are firmly planted or that round cushion on which our backside is stably settled?
You might notice that I did not say how often do we return home and … . I said only, "How often do we return home?" Our way of practicing is without method, without technique; there are no mind games and there is no (futile) attempt at mind control. We simply return home. We just sit—shikantaza. Suzuki Roshi once admonished a student, "Do not ever say that 'You sit zazen.' Zazen sits zazen!"
Perhaps you return home daily, perhaps a few times a week, perhaps just on Sundays when you visit O-An Zendo or join another sangha to practice, continue your search and study. What is present on the lawn when you return home? What are your "choice possessions"—preferences to which you hold so very tightly, expectations that seem well-founded and near-certain, ways of carving up the world into neat little boxes, ways of carving that, when not agreed to by someone (or even no-one, for the world all on its own carves a path independent of our precious personal wishes), upset you and stir-up a mild, moderate, or monstrous frenzy?
"One coat of pride, perhaps a bit threadbare; Illusion's trinkets, splendid for the young; Some items, miscellaneous, marked 'Fear'; The chair of honor, with a missing rung."
For the one sitting in this seat, on this day, it is respect—the not too-distant relative of Roethke's threadbare coat of pride, tastefully draped over the chair of honor. This one has a strong desire, not so much to be respected, but to not be dis-respected. This is no distinction without a difference, yet the difference is subtle. It turns a great deal on trust. I had to return home often before I could see this desire as a "choice possession" on my lawn, as there were so many other things piled on-top of it, obscuring it from my sight. I imagine it as a golden ring with very dark patina, no doubt acquired as it was passed from hand to hand over many lifetimes, for I am not its only owner. And though I saw it lying there, still I could not stop myself from rushing to claim it, wear it.
When Shakyamuni Buddha returned home under the Bo Tree so many, many years ago, we are told that he met, not with an auctioneer, but with a demon-like entity named Mara. Mara had come to prevent (or otherwise obstruct) the Buddha's efforts towards awakening, along with his [Mara's] three (or: five) daughters. As I imagine the scene, it is not quite that Mara "whipped up a sale" with what was on the then-Bodhisattva's lawn. Mara threw everything onto the lawn, rather, in an attempt to rouse Shakyamuni from his seat. What was thrown? Attachment, aversion, and ignorance if we count three, and pride and fear too if we count five, culminating in a final challenge. "What right do you have, Siddhartha, to awaken? Who can you call to bear witness on your behalf?" asks Mara. The Buddha-to-be responds by touching the fingers of his right hand to the Earth. The Earth shakes in response.
More important, in this context anyways, is the fact that while
[Mara] was whipping up a sale.
[Siddhartha] did not move to claim what was [his] own.
Siddhartha, that is, stayed put. He remained seated, under that magnificent tree. He did not leave home. That is a rather difficult thing to do, it seems to me.
The spiel ran on; the sale was brief and brisk; The bargains fell to bidders, one by one. Hope flushed my cheekbones with a scarlet disk. Old neighbors nudged each other at the fun.
Why is it difficult to simply remain seated? We could look outward and, undoubtedly, find something at which to point. "Momentum!" you might cry. "All of the people 'out there' just move so fast, always rushing, always hurrying, always going! They are why I cannot sit still! If only they would slow down, then my practice, my search and study would …" You can fill in the rest if you so desire. Maybe, but I doubt that this is where the finger needs be pointed.
There is a danger in understanding the above story about Siddhartha's awakening as staring a literal demon-like entity named Mara. By "literal," I mean that there are demons or demon-like entities (or: beings) that walk throughout the world, with horns, fangs, and tails, perhaps, who deliberately, intentionally, cause difficulties in our and others' lives. Perhaps there are such beings; it really does not matter.
What does, however, is that when Siddhartha returned home, he returned home to the whole of himself. At the risk of stretching this metaphor too much, every door in the house was open, every closet, every cabinet, and their tops too exposed, as well as behind every couch and under every bed. Present to him were all the trappings of the ego or the small self. He felt the pull of every attachment, the push of every aversion; he remembered all of those moments where pride "got the best of him," as we sometimes say, and fear too had its way. And ignorance, lest we forget, every time it—the illusory existence of a separate self—manifest in its many ways. That too was present.
Some versions of the story tell of arrows launched in Siddhartha's direction with great speed. Just before they would pierce his flesh, though, they are suddenly transformed into flower petals that fall, in their own time, to the ground. Were there literal arrows? It does not matter. What does is how you feel when you return home to your attachments and aversions, to those times when pride "got the best of you" and fear had its day. When ignorance took many shapes and played its integral part in the creation of suffering, for you and others, including those you love. Sitting with all of that is difficult, is uncomfortable, it hurts—as though your flesh were about to be pierced by hundreds of arrows.
It is difficult to not move, to not claim what is our own, to simply sit still, upright and confident, with all of it. It is said in the Song of Trusting Mind that where there is "a hairsbreadth's deviation, heaven and earth are set apart." Why? Any single movement brings all movements along with it.
That said, it is not impossible to stay put. Roshi often reminds us that the teachings ask nothing of us that is impossible. Some days, you notice that it is a little less difficult to sit with what arises. The more you practice and diligently, the more you may have such days. You may start to feel hopeful, just as the person in Roethke's poem does, watching items depart from their lawn. Still, no matter what your resumé says—how many years you have been practicing, whether you wear hand-sewn robes, or go by a Dharma name—there will still come days in which you too are jostling with others as the auctioneer's spiel runs a predictable course. Practice is transformative, not destructive, and we cannot help but be in relationship with everything.
My spirits rose each time the hammer fell, The heart beat faster as the fat words rolled. I left my home with unencumbered will And all the rubbish of confusion sold.
It is at this point, perhaps, that Siddhartha's story—and our stories—departs from that of the unnamed person in Roethke's poem. I am not sure that if we sit for ten years, then ten more years, and then another ten, we will rise from our zafus with unencumbered wills. I am not sure that at some point in our practice-lives all the "rubbish of confusion" will be sold. I am also not sure that I am not sure. Although we are not aiming at anything in particular to happen, things do happen. Of that, if nothing else, I am sure.
Sometimes we say that things gradually become "lighter" with practice. Other times we say that our grip relaxes—that near-automatic reaction to hold tightly to some thing becomes slightly-less-automatic—and it becomes easier for things to pass in their own time. It becomes easier for things to pass in their own time—perhaps that is it.
The Song of Trusting Mind says:
Don’t keep searching for the truth, just let go of your opinions. For the mind in harmony with the Tao, all selfishness disappears with not even a trace of self-doubt; you can trust the universe completely. All at once you are free with nothing left to hold on to, all is empty brilliant perfect in its own being.
The more we practice staying put, remaining seated, or not leaving home, the less we tend to put ourselves in something's way, meddle in someone else's affairs, or otherwise create disharmony in the world. The less we assert our preferences, see as possible only what our expectations allow, and the more the small self stays in its proper place. The more we stay out of our own way, the more we feel that undercurrent of unceasing trust in ourselves and throughout universe. Then where is there difficulty? Your present circumstances, right now—where is there difficulty? There may be some discomfort, of course. Your legs are a little sore, your back a little stiff, or your neck feels tight. What about these things is difficult, though? You can handle them, you are confident in this. If you are not, I still am. You can do this and you are doing it.
It seems, then, that there needs be no divergence. Unencumbered wills are ours, necessarily. For what is an impediment all on its own, independent of any relation? Nothing. Nothing is. We are reminded of this when we sit, when we walk, when we chant, when we eat, and so on. Years of practice will not change things outside of this skin bag. Years of practice will change this skin bag, though, how it is that it—I—shows up to meet whatever appears, and that changes other things. For nothing is any thing or any kind of thing, but is what it is owing to all the relations present at that time. What I want to say is: while there is cause and effect, there is agency too. We can influence some what appears—whether an experience is a wall or a door, whether we respond with frustration and close-down or compassion and open-up, whether we continue to water seeds of greed, anger, and ignorance or generosity and equanimity, whether we grasp tightly or "open [our] hands and walk, innocent."
All of this—these signs of awakening or Buddhahood—requires simply returning home and staying put. Staying put when it is comfortable and when it is not, when it is pleasant and when it is not. Just sit, and let the "rubbish of confusion" sit too. It will sell itself, and in its own time, if you let it.
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So much yes to the practice of staying. And the power of presence, patience, and time. Thank you for teaching and inspiring, Taishin Michael.