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The Beauty of Beginnings - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 02, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

The Beauty of Beginnings

So again, welcome everybody, and Happy New Year! I get to say that with confidence today. You know, sometimes as the days go on, you don't know if it's still okay to say Happy New Year. But here I am on the first, and so of course, New Year's Day often marks a new beginning.

Obviously, it's a new year, but it's not uncommon for us to set new intentions. I have this idea: "I'm going to do this, that, or the other thing. I'm going to finally eat more fiber, exercise more, meditate more." All these things that we say we're going to do. And I couldn't help myself; I found myself this past week thinking, "Oh, I should do this, I should do that." And then I would chastise myself a little bit like, "Oh Diana, just because it's the beginning of the year doesn't mean you have to set these resolutions." But it is a time of the year of maybe new beginnings.

We might think of these beginnings in a number of different ways. In Buddhism, in this practice, we tend to talk more about endings than beginnings: the ending of suffering. This path of practice is all about the ending of suffering—no longer having the confusion or the sense that something's just not right. We teach about impermanence—how nothing lasts forever; it's always ending. Things are transient, all experiences are transient. Of course they are.

But implicit in these teachings, even if it's not explicit, is this idea of beginnings. We see this showing up again and again. For me, often when I'm giving a guided meditation—sometimes I'll give a guided meditation to myself, using a little voice to myself if I'm feeling particularly unsettled—I often hear myself saying, either out loud or to myself: "If you find yourself lost in thought, begin again. Just simply begin again." This idea that it doesn't matter how many times you've been lost in thought or what the mind has been doing, you always just very simply come back to the breath. It doesn't matter how many times we have to do that—ten thousand, ten million, one thousand one hundred, whatever. It also doesn't matter how long we've been away lost in thought—ten seconds, ten minutes, ten hours.

This holds for our meditation practice as well. Even just coming to the cushion—maybe you haven't meditated in years, months, weeks, days—we can always begin again. In some ways, it is something to be really valued. There's this book by Shunryu Suzuki¹, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which recognizes that in the beginner, there is this possibility, an opening. Whereas the expert has this idea of, "Oh yeah, I have everything, I've got it, I don't need to learn anything new."

This is exemplified by the story of a Buddhist professor going to a Zen master and saying, "I understand a lot about Buddhism, but I'd like to learn something from you." The Zen master says, "Great, thank you, welcome. Come on in, have a cup of tea." The Zen master offers the professor a cup, gets the kettle of tea, and pours and pours. Pretty soon, the tea is coming up near the top and starts to overflow. The professor says, "Wait, wait, wait! It's overflowing!" And the Zen master says, "The cup is like your mind. You think that you have all the answers, there is no room for anything else. There's no room for me to pour anything in there." So this idea of beginnings is valued, acting as an encouragement to always come back and begin again.

Of course, this whole idea of beginning is part of this notion of cultivation. Whether we're cultivating mindfulness, loving-kindness, or our ethical conduct—showing up with truthfulness and not causing harm—that has some beginning too.

The Buddha's Beginnings

I want to share something about the Buddha and his beginnings. We tend to idealize the Buddha, which is a beautiful, fantastic thing to do, but we can also emphasize some of the areas where he didn't take a clear, straight line, where his beginnings maybe weren't as obvious or straightforward as we might imagine.

The story of his seeking for awakening is that he became dismayed with the life he was living, even though it had so much opulence, luxury, and sensual pleasures—probably anything that was available at that time in ancient India. He became dismayed with this after seeing someone who was old, someone who was sick, and a corpse, recognizing that this was going to happen in his life also.

Instead, he set out to seek the supreme state of sublime peace: anuttaraṁ santivarapadaṁ². Siddhartha went and studied with some teachers, learned some meditation practices, and excelled at them, but still hadn't found this state of sublime peace. Then he did extreme asceticism, and still didn't find these states of sublime peace. Then he discovered the Middle Way—not extreme austerities, not extreme opulence—and sat under a Bodhi tree to discover this sublime peace. And he does.

I like this expression, "sublime peace." In some ways, I think it's what we're all looking for—a place where we can rest, have some security, maybe like this final exhale. But the Buddha had to find his way; it wasn't exactly clear how to get there. His seeking wasn't just a clear, straight line where he knew exactly how to get there, never wavered, and didn't do anything else. It took him many years.

Then he is awakened, and he doesn't begin to teach. The story is that he hesitates. He thinks, "How am I going to explain this? There are so many people that just wouldn't understand this." And he decides not to teach. The tradition holds that there is a special classification of individuals like this; they're called Paccekabuddhas³. The Paccekabuddhas are those individuals that become completely awakened on their own without having heard any teachings, and decline to teach. It's a valid path; not everybody is intended to be a teacher.

But then there's some divine intervention. The story is that a divine being comes down and says, "No, you must teach." And so he does. As I mentioned the other day when I was talking about impermanence, he first teaches his former fellow practitioners, a group of five that he had been practicing austerities with. When he approaches them, they all agree amongst themselves: "We're not going to treat him with respect. We will acknowledge him, but we will not treat him with respect because he gave up the austerities and is now living in luxury." So when he shows up, the group of five speak to him in what the Buddha considers a disrespectful way. But then he convinces them that no, in fact, he is awakened, and they should listen to him. He gives them teachings.

Even for them, with the Buddha freshly awakened, it takes them quite some time to become awakened. The story tells of how they had to go out repeatedly for alms rounds for days, and some of them would go out and get food for all the rest before this group of five are awakened. Then the sixth person the Buddha meets and gives a teaching to is Yasa⁴, who is a layperson like us. The Buddha gives him some teachings, and he becomes awakened immediately.

These individuals who had been practicing extreme austerities took quite some time, while a layperson like us got it immediately. We might wonder why that is. I don't know, we can speculate. Maybe the Buddha was still learning how to teach, and maybe his teaching wasn't the best for the group of five. Or maybe this group of five, in order to do such extreme austerities, had to have a rigidness, a fundamentalism, a very narrow way in which to live, to starve oneself for example. Whereas a layperson doesn't have that; they have a little bit more flexibility of mind, trying things and experiencing different things.

Unfurling into Beginnings

Before I come back to the teachings that Yasa received, I want to say, of course, we have all had our own beginnings with practice. I remember the first time I ever sat down to meditate. I was on a meditation retreat. I thought I knew how to meditate, but actually, I didn't. I had done yoga and thought lying down on the floor with eyes closed for a couple of minutes was meditating. I had a hard time on that first retreat, but that was the beginning of my practice. All of you had a beginning—maybe reading a Dharma book, hearing a podcast or app, or coming to a Dharma talk. One thing about beginnings is that they are about change, something new.

When I was working in corporate America, there was a time when a lot of planning was happening about changes that were going to happen to make certain improvements. I remember one individual saying to a group of us, "If we're going to make changes in how the department does things... this means you actually have to change." I remember at that moment feeling like, "Oh, I was hoping I could stay exactly the way I was, I'm kind of comfortable with the way things are." But this recognition hit me: "Oh yeah, if things are going to be different, it's going to be a little bit uncomfortable. I have to get out of the usual and do something new."

Pointing to that, I'd like to read a poem about beginnings. It's written by John O'Donohue⁵, an Irish poet, and it points to this new year, or whatever is going to begin for you. It starts this way:

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

I appreciate that in this first stanza is the line: "This beginning has been quietly forming." There's less emphasis on willpower, brute strength, and "I've got to do this, I should do this." Instead, there's this feeling of something that's growing, something that's finding its way—maybe like those little blades of grass that show up in the sidewalk or after a rain. Those little mushrooms that pop up everywhere are delightfully unexpected in the lawn, the woods, or on a fallen log. The beginning is quietly forming, so there's an emphasis on allowing, unfolding, and unfurling, rather than saying, "Okay, I should do this, I'm going to make this happen." That only lasts for as long as it lasts. This poem points to something naturally forming that can grow.

This poem also includes these lines: "It watched you play with the seduction of safety and the gray promises that sameness whispered." How often does our reality not match the promise? "Buy this, do this, you'll be happy"—and it turns out that it doesn't. Instead, tune into what's happening inside and allow that to unfurl. This carries some promise for a new beginning. Maybe it's not neat and tidy. Maybe it's not even clear what it is. Maybe, like the Buddha, we start going one direction and realize, "No, that doesn't work. Okay, I'm going to go this direction. Oh yeah, that doesn't work either." But there's a honoring of something inside—this seeking for sublime peace. Maybe there's something inside of you that's whispering something about sublime peace.

This poem says, "Though your destination is not yet clear, you can trust the promise of this opening." My practice is all about opening. It's a gesture of letting go, not a gesture of tightening up. So often there can be the sense of straining. I had this idea on a long retreat that I was supposed to get really concentrated. I had this idea in my mind, "This is a long retreat, and this is why people go on long retreats, to get concentrated." I strained so much that I went a little off the rails, and the teachers told me, "Okay Diana, stop meditating and just go outside. You need to spend hours hiking amongst the trees and just loosen up." I had got so tense, tight, and closed down, thinking that was the way to get concentrated. It turns out that if you want the mind to be settled, there has to be openness. A sense of well-being is an integral ingredient; it's not optional. How we define well-being maybe shifts and changes as we practice, but it's part of what supports this seeking for sublime peace for all of us.

You might say, "Okay Diana, that sounds interesting, I want to begin, but I really don't know where or what." Maybe there's something inside of you, but you don't have a clear sense of how to begin.

Generosity as the Foundation

I'll offer the teaching that the Buddha gave to Yasa, the first layperson that became awakened. What was the first teaching the Buddha gave to him—which he also gave to Yasa's father and two women, who all became awakened? Generosity.

This generosity is a sense of opening, of letting go, of not holding in or clinging. It's the gesture of sharing and being generous of spirit. If somebody makes a mistake, not immediately pointing it out to them if it doesn't really matter so much. The generosity of giving somebody the benefit of the doubt, thinking, "That doesn't really make sense to me what you're saying, but maybe there's a piece that I missed." Instead of assuming a person doesn't know what they're talking about, saying, "There must be something here that you know that I don't know, or maybe you can help me understand."

This practice is not about acquiring more and more. It is not about getting tighter and tighter. It's not about attaining or getting; it turns out it's all about letting go. And then this beginning inside of us has the space to blossom and become whatever it is going to become.

When generosity is the first teaching, it's also the last teaching. After people are awakened, the Buddha gives the instructions for them to go out and share the teachings, share the Dharma. We can interpret the Dharma in a number of different ways. Obviously, the teachings themselves, but we are not about proselytizing in this tradition. The Dharma maybe is just the way things are—the recognition that we don't have to join in when there's some harming happening. The Dharma can be our commitment to non-harming. It can be our commitment to learning about ourselves and cultivating some mental stability and well-being so that we can be a support for others.

Generosity is also the ground of compassion. It's letting go, at least in that moment, of only being concerned with myself. Saying, "Oh, here is some suffering. May there be an end to this suffering." Maybe it's just a movement of the heart, or maybe it's something we actually do. But generosity is letting go of only caring about ourselves or the people we like, recognizing that others are suffering and having generosity in spirit. Or literally with time, service, or money.

Through this practice of generosity, we learn about ourselves. We learn what is easy to let go of and what our cherished things are. What's most important to us? We can see if these things are supportive or not. We can feel into that. What are our beliefs that are the most important, and what are the ones that we're willing to change? Our beliefs about who deserves things, what money stands for, what things are worth, what's important, and what's not important.

Generosity is such a key, beautiful teaching, and it's awkward for Dharma teachers to talk about, so we often don't. But I wanted to say this because it can be such a powerful thing, and it's something we can all do. We might have this idea, "I want to begin something that's going to support my life." We have these high ideals: "I'm going to meditate every day." It's a beautiful thing; I highly recommend it, but it's not always easy. We are not machines, and sometimes we just have to begin again. But generosity is something that we can do in our daily life, when we meet people and have conversations. Giving them space, giving them time, giving them the benefit of the doubt—it's something we can do in so many situations as a way of practice.

The Bonfire of the Heart

I'd like to end with the recognition that beginnings also have implicit in them endings. Beginnings and endings go together, and as I mentioned, we tend to talk more about endings, but these endings involve a certain amount of letting go.

Here's another poem, this one by Rosemary Wahtola Trommer⁶. She is a fantastic poet who writes a poem every single day and posts it on the internet—freely offered generosity. This poem was written on December 24th, 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic. It's called Bonfire of the Heart. I thought it was a good poem as we're starting the new year:

I throw in any tallies I've been keeping,
the ones that record who did what and when.
I throw in all the letters I wrote in my head
but didn't send.
I throw in tickets I didn't buy
to places I didn't visit.
I throw in all those expectations I had
for myself and the world last year
and countless lists of things I thought I should do.
I love watching them ignite, turn into embers, to ash.
I love the space they leave behind,
where anything can happen.

At the end of 2020, we had to let go of all kinds of things. But even just a few years later, every year we all have these tallies we've been keeping, these letters that we wrote in our heads but never sent, places we didn't visit. Just put those aside. Make room for whatever is going to begin this year, whatever is inside of us searching for this sublime peace. In the same way that the Buddha had this sense that there's something better, that it is possible—I'd like to say it's possible. I know it's possible. My life is completely different than how it used to be. I have found a peace that I certainly did not have years ago. So with that, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year, and I'll open it up if anybody has some questions or comments. Thank you.

Q&A and Reflections

Question: Thank you, and Happy New Year. That state of sublime peace, you told us the Pali phrase for it. Could you say it again slowly?

Diana: Yes, the Pali for the highest state of sublime peace is anuttaraṁ santivarapadaṁ². I don't have this memorized, so I have to read it. Anuttaraṁ means highest. Santi means peace. Vara is sublime, and padaṁ is state. So, the supreme state of sublime peace.

Question: There's a question online: "How do you drive consistency in your meditation habit?"

Diana: That's the question, right? We get all year to practice with that. I'll just say a few things, and we all get to find what works for us. First, recognize that two minutes is better than zero minutes, or maybe even one minute. Sometimes if we haven't meditated for a certain amount of time, we say, "Oh shoot, I'm not going to meditate anymore," and we abandon the whole thing. We are not machines; we will do this, I promise you. But you can begin again with one or two minutes. This is a way we find some consistency.

Two, come up with contingency plans. We often have this idea, "I'm going to meditate in the morning before I go to work." What we often don't have is a contingency plan if that doesn't work. Have a plan like, "I'm going to squeeze in two minutes when I get home from work before I start cooking dinner," or "I'll sit in my car for two minutes." Having a contingency plan is good.

Three, it's helpful to connect to what's important for us. Recognize that change is not easy; doing something we haven't done before is not easy. On those times when it's tough, can we connect to, remind ourselves of, or borrow some wisdom from somebody else? Reading a book, listening to a podcast, an app, or a Dharma talk and saying, "Okay, I know this is helpful. I really don't want to do it, but I'm going to do it anyway." We can idealize and think we should always want to sit and it should always be a pleasant experience. But keep in mind the benefits. Look for external support, which can take many forms. Coming to a meditation center turns out to be really helpful. Going on retreats helps because it's hard to sit that much by yourself, but it's easier when you're with others, whether online or in person.

I'd like to ask you, what are some things that have helped you have some consistency in practice?

Audience Member: A reminder on my calendar.

Diana: Great, thank you. That's a great idea. We're so often looking at our calendars.

Audience Member: Finding a teacher that you really like and listening to their guided meditations.

Diana: Just repeating it for the microphone: finding a teacher you really like and listening to their guided meditations.

Audience Member (Namita): [Inaudible comment]

Diana: Namita was sharing that she uses an app, Ten Percent Happier. I'm familiar with this app; Joseph Goldstein⁷ is a main teacher on there. She was saying that there are different topics on emotions, ethics, or loving-kindness, and you can choose the duration of the time. Namita was also talking about the 7:00 AM Monday through Friday meditation on YouTube with Gil Fronsdal⁸ and friends.

Audience Member (Jim): I use a meditation app on my phone and have it set for a certain number of minutes. On days when I know I'm not even going to do that, I always at least start it so that it shows that day got used, so I see how many days in a row I can keep it going. I also wanted to add to the comments about the 7:00 AM weekday group with IMC helping, and also Audio Dharma is absolutely amazing. There was one other comment that I heard a few weeks ago that was really good about this notion of having an ideal of what the practice is supposed to lead to. Anam Thubten⁹ talks about how sometimes that can be just another chain of thinking, "I'm supposed to be perfectly calm and equanimous." He said it might be better to just have the aspiration to be the person that your dog thinks you are.

Diana: I love it! The person your dog thinks you are. If you have a dog or a cat, they kind of think you're this really kind, generous human. That is so great, and a bit more doable in some ways! Thank you all, and Happy New Year.