Using Your Wise Self to Let Go of Dissatisfaction

By genpo.roshi on October 2, 2009 in Spirituality

Student:

Over the last year dissatisfaction has been growing and growing. I feel like I’m drowning in it lately. I wonder how much of it has to do with me being not – me and not really wanting to admit that I’m dissatisfied on some level. It’s become a really powerful force in my life and it is really playing with me. I wonder if you have any recommendations for what to do because I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed?

Genpo Roshi:

Well I think you said it. If you feel that you do not own the voice of dissatisfaction completely, then I would really come from that place. Look at it and ask the question– “What am I so dissatisfied about? “

“What are my preferences?”

Give voice to that aspect and then balance it by asking to speak to the voice of Big Mind or No Self. Then come to the Apex were you transcend and include both Dissatisfaction and No Self.

This is why I love the first two Awareness’s of the Eight Awareness’s of the Buddha, or the Enlightened One. The first one says: “have few desires”, and then the second one says: “know how to be satisfied with what you have”. This is because you are still going to have to have desires, preferences, and cravings, however you don’t need to have a lot of them. We can be a little more conscious of all our desires and all our cravings and all that we seek. We could even crave the things that maybe are a little better for us, a little healthier for us.

What we want is to have a balance and to know how to be satisfied with what we have. This is what we call the middle way. The middle path is not the exclusion of extremes, it is an embracing of the extremes and a transcending of extremes and the transcending of extremes doesn’t mean that we lose them, it means we include and go beyond. So you are going to have preferences and desires and you’re going to have a voice that has no preference and has no desires – The Voice of Big Mind and then from the Apex, you can pick and choose wisely. So the Apex is Wise Action.

Zen Master Genpo Roshi founded the Kanzeon Sangha, an international Zen community in 1984, with groups and centers throughout Europe and the U.S., and is abbot of Big Mind Western Zen Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, which he founded in 1993. He discovered the Big Mind process in 1999. His newest book is Big Mind Big Heart: Finding Your Way. His website is www.bigmind.org

About genpo.roshi

Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi is a revolutionary in the tradition of the old Zen Masters who so embodied Buddhist teaching that they were able to revitalize and transform it for their own day and age. As Buddhism moved from India to China to Japan and other Asian cultures, it found unique expression in each culture that made its fundamental teachings resonate for a new time and place. Genpo Roshi is working to transmit the essence of the Buddha’s teachings in a way that is readily accessible to Westerners and relevant to our everyday life.The core of Genpo Roshi’s teaching is the unshakeable and contagious certainty that every one of us, regardless of our socio-economic, cultural or religious background, can instantly awaken to our true nature, like the great masters of old — like the historical Buddha himself, whose essential teaching was nothing less than this. This experience helps us shed anxiety and fear and learn to live more purposeful, compassionate and joyful lives. Roshi combines Zen tradition with the insights of such visionary western figures as Carl Jung, Fritz Perls, and Hal Stone, enabling virtually anyone to realize their true nature, a realization they can further deepen through meditation.Dennis Genpo Merzel comes from a long line of Rebbes. Born in Brooklyn NY, he grew up in Southern California where he was a high school champion swimmer and All-American water polo player. He earned a Masters degree in education from the University of Southern California and was a teacher and lifeguard before ordaining as a Zen monk under Zen Master Taizan Maezumi in 1973. Completing formal Koan study in 1979 he became Maezumi Roshi’s second Dharma Successor in 1980, the first being Bernie Tetsugen Glassman. He received Inka (final seal of approval as Zen Master) from Roshi Glassman in 1996, thereby becoming one of a small group of Westerners recognized as lineage holders in both the Soto and Rinzai Zen traditions.In 1982 Genpo Sensei began teaching throughout Europe and founded the international group he named the Kanzeon (Love and Compassion) Sangha, centered in Salt Lake City, Utah, with affiliates in France, Holland, Poland, Belgium, Germany, England, and Malta. He has eleven Dharma Successors: Catherine Genno Pages, John Shodo Flatt, Anton Tenkei Coppens, Malgosia Jiho Braunek, Daniel Doen Silberberg, Nico Sojun Tydeman, Nancy Genshin Gabrysch, Diane Musho Hamilton, Michael Mugaku Zimmerman, Richard Taido Christofferson, and Michel Genko Dubois. He has given Inka to seven Zen teachers: John Daido Loori, Catherine Genno Pages and Anton Tenkei Coppens, Jan Chozen Bays, Charles Tenshin Fletcher, Nicolee Jikyo McMahon and Susan Myoyu Andersen. For ten years, until 2007, he was the President of the White Plum Asanga, the worldwide community comprising all the Dharma heirs of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, their successors, and the many groups they lead.Roshi’s publications include The Eye Never Sleeps, Beyond Sanity and Madness, 24/7 Dharma, and The Pah of The Human Being, and several DVDs. His latest book, Big Mind/Big Heart: Finding Your Way, published in the Fall of 2007, is also going to be published in translation in Holland, Spain, Germany, Russia and Poland. He is married to Stephanie Young Merzel, co-administrator of Kanzeon Zen Center International, and has two children, Tai Merzel, an aerospace engineer, and Nicole Merzel, a mathematics major at the University of Puget Sound. Website: www.bigmind.org

View all posts by genpo.roshi →

Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter to receive updates.