Finding Our Way

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This is Dharma Podcast at thermapodcast.org.

This is episode number 2593.

It was recorded on March 11th, 2026, and it is titled, Finding Our Way.

The Speaker for this episode is James Bristol.

How is everybody?

Can you hear me back there?

Okay.

Oh, welcome.

I want to say a special welcome to cohort 17, who's with us this week, I believe, a week.

And the chaplains.

Congratulations to everybody that went through the jukeye ceremony last Friday, many more rockesses in the house.

It's beautiful to see.

I want to welcome my nephew, Caleb.

He's here.

And thank all the residents.

I love practicing with you and learning from you.

And I want to say thank you all sort of Rochie for all that I learned from her and for this space.

35 years of basically having a transformation here and really enriching our lives.

So thanks Rochie.

So twice over the last.

Oh, good.

Thank you.

Check, check.

Many is five on.

Check, check, check.

It's not good.

Something weird is happening.

Check, check, check.

Yeah, that's what it is.

Check.

Okay.

Try it.

Try it on with yours, James.

He doesn't know.

Okay.

How do I sound now?

No, perfect.

How does anybody else have four alarm allergies today?

You'll get that metaphor later in my talk.

Anyway, so I wanted to say that a couple of weeks ago, I had some friends come up to me and they were asking, you know, how do we navigate this crazy time that we're in, you know, and over the last.

We can have really crazy time.

And one of them was Cindy who's sitting in the back.

And she said, you should do a talk about finding our way.

So that's the title of today's talk, finding our way.

And Cindy's a trainer and she works with many people every day.

And so many of them are struggling with what's going on in the world right now.

You know, really feeling helpless, struggling to find their way, struggling to deal with the rage and anger and heartbreak that they're feeling.

And then the other person that came up later in that same day, they were dealing with something more personal, you know, health care issue.

And trying to figure out like which way do they navigate their life.

And, you know, I told both of them that, you know, we have to basically deal with what's right in front of us.

That's what we can act on.

I mean, we're not going to change the vaporization of what is going on in the climate.

At least we're going to have a little impact.

You know, we're not going to reverse our aging or how we deal with health concerns.

It's all going to be there.

But we do have what's right in front of us.

We have this practice.

And we can clearly see into our own life and really make wise choices and hold the hand of the person next to us who's struggling.

You know, we can do this.

And I don't say this as a way to sort of look away from from what's really going on or a way to have to make peace with something that we shouldn't make peace with.

It's really about, you know, from a lot of witnessing a lot of suffering going through some of my own suffering.

But the path is really what's right in front of us right here, right now, always.

And you know, I want to be honest when I said this and I believe it completely.

You know, I also have those moments at two in the morning when I were three or even four when I wake up feeling anxiety, mostly thinking about clients or, you know, wanting to make sure they're doing okay.

Even when it might be difficult to figure out how that might be.

And yeah, so I say this because, you know, I'm not somebody that has all of the answers.

I haven't figured it all out.

But this is where I really feel like our practice shows up right in the midst of all of this.

And it's what we're working with essentially.

It's what we're working with what's right in front of us.

And it's really the ground from which our practice arises.

And you know, underneath it all, I think many of us are asking right now, you know, how do I proceed when I don't know what to do?

And that's a question I've heard a number of times.

And let me sort of name what I think might actually be happening.

You know, what we might be feeling in our body, what we might be feeling in our mind.

You know, the overwhelm, I think, takes many forms.

You know, I mean, politically we're certainly feeling it right now where we're witnessing what's going on in the world, all the travesties of the world that are happening that are really making us sort of feel powerless.

You know, that everything is urgent, but we just don't know what to do.

And then we have this awfulness of war, you know, wars all over the place, new wars.

And then there's the personal, you know, everything that we're going through ourselves, you know, the struggles that we have, the financial struggles, our kids, our parents who are aging,

our own aging, you know, it's sort of accumulation of a lot of grief and disappointment.

And then we have questions about whether our lives matter, matter, whether we're doing enough, whether we're ever doing enough.

And if it's too late to change direction, or even if we have a direction.

And then there are the times when it may not be just one big thing, but an accumulation of many things, you know, like we may be struggling in a relationship that has over time gotten quiet.

Or we may be really feeling our body sort of depleted.

There may be phone calls that we've dreaded.

It's like we're swimming in the middle of the current, but we can't quite find our stroke.

And you know, underneath all of that, what I want to explore today is the stories that we tell ourselves.

I can think of all of the stories that you tell yourself and that the self keeps telling you, you know, I should know what to do.

I should know how to fix this. I'm not doing enough. I never do enough.

Like all of these stories, when we have those kinds of stories going on our head, you know, we really suffer twice from what's happening.

And then from thinking that we should already know what to do with all of that.

And I think this is where

where Zazen really meets us.

It's certainly not going to, you know, take away the overwhelm or fix any of the anxiety that we're feeling.

But it does teach us how to practice inside of all the overwhelm.

You know, how to sit when we really feel like all that we want to do is run away or hide.

Or, you know, whatever it may be that we want to escape.

And in that stillness, I think something really becomes visible.

And it's the ability to see into our stories and really understand like what it's doing for us and also how it's sometimes against us.

You know, recently I was thinking about

Dougan's teaching to study the Buddha ways, to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self.

And to forget the self is to be combined with all things or connected to all things of the universe.

And, you know, this, I think about this story a lot.

And I really think that it's very essential and it's practical.

You know, and we've heard it many times.

And I think what Dougan's pointing to here is aspirational.

You know, it's the deepest possibility.

You know, it's not a permanent state that we achieve and then keep.

Because we're never going to forget the self.

I mean, I haven't, you haven't.

We may get glimpses of it, but you know, I still wake up at two in the morning, feeling anxiety or processing my own stories.

And I still get tangled up in anxiety, even sitting on the cushion and sometimes the doubt that comes up even on the cushion.

But I think it's this practice that teaches us how to see through all of our own selfing.

You know, to see this, see through these stories.

You know, it's not to destroy the self because, you know, the self also loves the self-greaves.

The self shows up at really important moments.

But it's to see through the stories that really constrict and those kinds of stories that tell us, you know, this is what you are.

You know, this fear, this limitation or this hard moment.

And you know, the story also insists on story.

I mean, our mind loves the narrative.

We're always creating stories.

And sometimes the story is really true and necessary.

But in times like this, with all that we're going through in the world, a lot of the stories that we tell are the stories that constrict or diminish.

You know, stories of powerlessness or irrelevance or, you know, that everything is so consuming or it's not consuming at all.

And we're crushed by the weight of it.

And so these are our stories and sometimes we feel them deep in the body.

I remember once I was, you know, I used to climb a lot and loved climbing.

And I was in Red Rocks in Nevada.

And Red Rocks is this just amazing climbing area.

And it was up on the wall and it was about a thousand feet up.

And you could look straight down from where I was on this ledge, blanking my partner.

And he was up on the wall quite a ways above me.

And I'm basically his anchor point.

And so I have three pieces of gear in a crack right at my feet.

And all of a sudden, you know, my mind just started to create this amazing catastrophic like disaster.

And the next thing I'm thinking, I'm like, oh my god, like what if he falls and it engages the rope, it goes into the cams, the cams spread, the crack widens and the shelf breaks off.

And we all plummet to the bottom of the canyon.

And nothing is, you know, everything is just fine at this moment, except in my mind.

You know, and I can really feel it.

My hands are sweating, my heart is beating.

But again, you know, everything is just fine.

And so the story felt completely real.

And then I don't know exactly how much time passed, but something shifted.

And all of a sudden, you know, I felt the rope in my hands.

I felt the weight of my partner up on there.

And my feet were solid on that ledge.

And I could feel a wind blow across me.

And I was like, oh wow, everything is exactly the way it was, the way that it should be.

And this story, this crazy like disaster movie that I was creating for myself just dissolved.

And in a sense, nothing had changed, yet everything had changed.

And this is the practice, you know, not the disaster movie, but the return.

To what's right in front of you, as it actually is.

And you know, our stories manifest in other ways.

I once had a really good friend named Yon.

Some of you out there may know Yon.

He's been dead now almost nine years.

And Yon used to say that he never wanted to become a lost consequence.

And you know, Yon was something.

I mean, he lived to be 80.

And he lived probably 20 years longer than he thought he should have lived.

And he let you know every single second that he had lived another day until his death.

And he was a handful.

You know, he used to say, you're not living life on the edge.

You're taking up too much room.

And he didn't care what people thought about him.

And yet, you know, Yon, we'd be watching a movie and he would reach over and hold your hand.

And it wasn't romantic.

It was just presence.

You know, I'm here or here.

This matters.

That was Yon.

And still, you know, this fearless kind of living on the edge, Yon,

worried about becoming a lost consequence.

You know, not forgotten, not invisible, just no longer consequential.

And you know, I think about these words because they're heavy.

And when I process it, and I think about, you know, what's underneath that?

What's the fear that's underneath that?

I don't think it's about others.

It's about the stories that we tell ourselves in the quiet moments.

You know, what I've done, where I'm going, who I am.

It may not matter.

And you know, that's a lot to carry.

And Yon carried it.

But then he'd hold your hand anyway.

And you know, at three in the morning, when you're thinking about things like this,

they feel completely true in your body, completely true.

And you know, it's not just the stories that we carry about aging or about,

you know, what to do with this war or, you know, becoming in consequential,

whatever it may be.

I've seen really accomplished capable people who are asking questions,

you know, like, how do I perceive with my life?

You know, is it too late to change direction?

How have I squandered it?

And you know, each week, well, actually every day, in the evening,

at the end of the sit, the last sit, we chant the four vowels.

And then the chant leader will say a few words that end with,

do not squander your life.

Do not squander your life.

And you know, some people may hear this as like an accusation of,

have I squandered it?

But I think these words, they're not words of regret.

They're words of this moment.

Like how do we show up to our life right now as it is and do so fully?

And not have it be the person that we want to be, or we should be,

or be in the place that we think we should be,

but right here, these hands, this breath, this moment.

How do we do that?

You know, I've been a family law attorney for a long time,

and I still stress about it and think about my clients

and it's a grind, and it's day in and day out.

And there are many times, you know, and I'm sure, like,

Kodo and Roshi and Dine, and they can all sort of a test of this when,

I'm like, oh, you know, one of these days when I have enough to retire,

then I'll really get involved in Zen.

And I think about that, and I'm like, that's me squandering my life.

You know, waiting for the perfect moment when everything just like the stars align,

and it all comes together, and then I can really live.

And you know, I think each one of us have this kind of moment in our lives.

You know, we're waiting instead of just being with what's right in front of us and living.

So there's a parable in the Lotus Sutra about the burning house.

And it's this story about this father who comes upon his really big house,

and it's ablaze, the whole thing is up in flames.

And inside are his many, many kids, and they're completely oblivious to the fire.

They're just inside playing, having a great time.

And in the traditional telling of the parable, you know, the Buddha who is the father

uses skillful means to get everybody out to safety.

And so everybody's out, everybody's doing just fine.

But I think today, we need a different way of looking at this story.

You know, we're in the burning house, and we know it.

And, you know, we've got this climate change.

We've got these wars going on.

We've got our own health concerns, even our own certainties are like crumbling.

All of that's going on, and we're clearly not oblivious to any of it.

And we can feel the heat.

And we're not getting out, because this is the house that we all live in.

And so the question becomes, how do we live inside the burning house?

How do we do that?

How do we practice when there's no escape?

When things aren't going to be okay, the way that we think that they should be okay?

And this is where practice meets us.

You know, it's not about escaping out of the burning house, but it's how to be present inside of it.

And really, to feel the heat without being consumed, and to see what's actually happening,

and to be able to reach out and hold the hand of the person next to you, even as the flames arise.

I think there's a tongue dynasty poet who understands this, and puts it in words for us.

And it's a layman pang.

And layman pang reminds me a lot of invicuity.

They were neither one of them were monks.

They were householders. They had families. They had jobs.

And layman pang was also a poet.

And his poetry really speaks directly to what we're after here.

And you know, as an aside, in Zen, we have a saying where, you know, before enlightenment,

chop wood, carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

And chopping wood and carrying water aren't the consolation prize at all.

Because they're the whole thing.

You know, they're the burning house, fully inhabited, you know, this moment, complete as it is.

And I say all of that just as a setup for this poem by layman pang.

So he writes,

my daily affairs are quite ordinary, but I'm in total harmony with them.

I don't hold on to anything. I don't reject anything.

No, we're an obstacle or conflict who cares about wealth and honor.

Even the poorest things shines.

My miraculous power and spiritual activity chopping wood and carrying water.

My miraculous power and spiritual activity chopping wood and carrying water.

And you know, finding our way isn't this destination that any of us are going to reach tomorrow.

You know, it's not a miraculous escape from the burning house.

It is the burning house.

It's now.

It's chopping wood and carrying water.

And it's also, you know, living with all of the difficulty that we're feeling, all of the stress,

all of this on this path and knowing that it's not an obstacle to the path.

It is the path.

We can't forget that.

And it's this moment right here that's for love, for taking risks, for really showing up,

for finding joy.

Koto is always telling us about joy.

And then we wake up and we do it again, not tomorrow, now.

So I think Roshi has really shown us this notion of what it's like to live in the burning house over the last year,

almost last year, since her surgeries.

A few weeks ago, I was texting with her.

And in the text, I really, I thought about the vulnerability of it all.

You know, having your chest opened, your heart stopped and started.

You know, not once, but twice.

And thinking about the mortality it must have made visible for her.

And the stories that must have been going on in her mind, especially in those three A moments, you know, will my body hold?

Will I be able to teach again?

Thinking about just how fragile she was at that time.

And yet she kept going.

And within months, you know, she was back here teaching.

She sat Rahatsu with us, and she was leading Nupaya.

And, you know, it wasn't so much teachings in the Dharma sense, you know, with words.

It was really how she approached all the difficulty, just watching how she approached all of the difficulty.

And the way that she sort of stayed with what was happening, no matter what was happening.

And so she found her way through all of this, not by escaping the burning house, but by living fully within it.

Really living fully within it.

And showing up, even when showing up meant taking that next difficult breath.

And this is what it's like to chop wood and carry water when the house is on fire.

You know, when you can't think your way through it, you know, when your, your own chest is the house on fire.

And all you can do is show up.

Not because you have an answer or you know exactly what you're doing, but because showing up is the answer.

And you know, even knowing this and even witnessing the beauty of this teaching, you know, I still wake up at three in the morning and feel that anxiety.

You know, the world is still burning.

You still have your stories.

But am I burning?

Are we burning?

So, burning glassman, Roshie's teacher, I think gives us a way through with the three tenants, calls them the three tenants, not knowing.

You know, this is sort of suspending your stories and staying curious, you know, rather than being certain.

But bearing witness where you can really step in to the suffering, you can really step into the joy and fully experience it, experiencing what is exactly as it is.

And then compassionate action.

And I think about these all of the time, you know, just every day I'm sort of like looking how can these three tenants sort of show up in life.

And when I think it's about is really being able to sort of see beyond our stories and to really look up from our stories and see what's actually in front of us.

And I can't help but think one of the stories that has been with me this past month was the Olympic skater.

I would imagine people saw what he went through.

And you know, he stood on that ice with every traumatic story, you know, every insecurity.

And then he went and he fell.

And then he fell again.

And he didn't get the goal.

And I think at that point, he was in the deepest not knowing like he really had no idea where he was in that moment and everything that he had worked for for so long was gone.

And then he did something really extraordinary, you know, he bore witness.

And he felt that full weight of his devastation, you know, those falls, the loss of that gold, like the whole crowd is there, like sure he was worried about, oh my God, what are they thinking.

And he also looked up and he saw his fellow competitor, you know, another skater, Mikhail, who was standing on the ice, having just won the gold.

That gold that he wanted so much.

And he saw someone else's joy.

And the beautiful thing is that he didn't let that joy and his own pain block him from showing up to it.

He looked and he appreciated and he saw it.

And from that place of bearing witness, he was really able to sort of see the suffering and feel, you know, his own suffering and the joy that Mikhail was going through.

And we had compassionate action.

He got up and he walked over and he gave Mikhail a hug.

And that's what we're practicing.

You know, we practice not to make all those 3am stories we have go away.

But to see them more as stories, you know, to feel we are more than our stories.

You know, not all the time, not permanently, just enough to act when it matters.

Just enough to act when it matters.

And you know, even in that scene, even for a moment, there's a space that's created.

You know, it's a space where we could feel the grief and still show up to hold the hand of the person next to us.

And it's not from a place of knowing, it's from a place of tenderness.

Well, some of you just knelt and said yes to the vows and creations are numberless.

I vow to free them.

Now, we say yes to the vows, knowing we may never fully accomplish them.

And yet we kneel.

We say yes, I will.

You know, it's not because we have a plan.

I think it's because it gives us a direction.

You know, when somebody's loaded up at an ice van or these wars are waging on and we don't have any idea how to fix any of it,

we do know which way we're facing.

Right?

We're facing toward the suffering.

You know, not away from it.

We're facing toward the person who's afraid.

We're facing toward the hand that needs holding.

And this is what it means to live the vow.

You know, not saving all beings, just this one, right here, right next to us.

On that hand that you're holding, someone else is holding your hand.

And we find our way together.

That's why we're both holding hands.

And when that person next to you asks you, how do I find my way?

What they're really asking you is, you know, will you sit with me when I'm afraid?

You know, will you be present when I'm lonely or I'm going through a tough time?

And the answer is yes.

You know what it's like to be able to show up to be a steady presence.

You know how to see fragility, yours and others, and meet it with tenderness.

And sometimes tenderness looks like this.

You know, we just sit.

We don't say anything.

We don't try to fix.

We just stay.

And we let silence be what it is.

And maybe you reach over like yondid and you hold their hand.

That's it.

That's enough.

We're willing to feel everything and show up with your whole heart no matter what.

This is tenderness.

And it's really the path that we're walking on.

And here's what I know that's really true about each one of us, about everyone in this room.

You think about this.

You have survived every single thing you have ever been through in your entire life to this moment in this room right now.

Think of that.

That's so powerful.

I mean, you've walked all of this and here you are still showing up, still practicing.

That's amazing.

And you know, having that kind of strength doesn't mean that in the future you're not going to feel afraid or not able to go forward or not going to feel uncertain.

It means that you know how to keep walking.

And you may not know the way.

You always have.

And this is what practice looks like.

Not dramatic.

Not certain.

You know, layman, paying, chopping wood, carrying water.

Eliamalinen.

Getting up, giving a hug.

You know, Roshi showing us her vulnerability and letting it be her teaching.

Each one of us having our own three a.m. terror.

And then getting up and showing up at the seven o'clock sit.

Going to work at nine or nine twenty if you're a resident.

Each one of us carrying all of our grief and our joy into our ordinary life.

Each one of us holding the hand that needs holding.

Knowing that it may not be enough.

And doing it anyway.

That's the practice.