The Open Gate

Thank you for listening to UPIA's Dharma podcast, an extraordinary series of talks from some of the finest teachers in the world. I'm Joan Halifax, founder of the UPIA's End Center, and we're happy to make these podcasts available to you. Please consider making a donation so we can offer these recordings freely. You'll find a donation button on our podcast page. And thank you so much. This is Dharma Podcast at DharmaPodcast.org. This is episode number 2658. It was recorded on September 2nd, 2026, and it is titled The Open Gate. The speaker for this episode is James Bristol. Well, welcome everybody. Thank you so much for coming tonight. Everybody in this room and everyone online, our Mahasanga. So it's always such a pleasure to be with you. Thank you, residents, for holding this place. Thank you, Roshi, for this practice, this place, and just the beauty of supporting us and really showing up to our lives. So I'm fuchsian. Have you all ever been in a situation where you see this face and all of a sudden it just becomes clear? Maybe it was down a long road or it was across a room where you're not exactly sure who it is, but all of a sudden that vision of them just settles in and then the seeing happens and you're like, oh, it's them. And you didn't do anything. You didn't like squint harder. You didn't try to think harder about it. It just, you know, happened. And your body sort of eased back just a little bit, maybe. And because the looking was over and the seeing was just there, this face clear. And nobody can really plan that happening. It's given. And keep that in mind when we're going through the talk tonight. So this talk is called The Open Gate. And it's about the first two folds in the eight-fold path. This is about right view and right intention. And you know, in the old sort of division of the path, there was wisdom, conduct, and concentration. And these first two folds, right view and right intention are wisdom itself. And so we're going to talk about that tonight. And everything outside of these first two folds into wisdom, everything grows in the eight-fold path out of this. So it's a really important aspect of the eight-fold path. And I want to take some pressure off of you right now because right view isn't something that you simply acquire. And think about this. It's not some sharp belief that you would paste over your eyes or anything like that. The first step of the path, and this is the good news, is that it isn't a step at all. You know, your eyes are open right now. And all of the seeing is already happening. And you are already viewing the world around you. And tonight we're just going to explore how. So a number of years ago, about a decade, twice a year, I would drive out to the rolling hills of eastern Iowa to a monastery, New Mall or Rehabi. Some of you have heard me talk about this place before. And you know, after you pass the last cornfield, there's this long approach to the monastery. And you turn off of Highway 151 and the world seems to sort of go quiet in stages. You know, first there's no traffic, then your sort of own need to hurry slows down. And then if you're really aware and you stay with the quiet long enough, there's a hurry, something underneath that, it itself quiets and settles down. And then you have the tower, the bell tower of the monastery that's just above the trees. And all of a sudden the trees open up to this beautiful limestone structure. That's the monastery. And during that time, I was a seminarian at Loyola University in Chicago. And I would go out to New Mallory with questions. Questions about whether I could give my life to God, questions about whether I could give my life to the Catholic Church. And whether I could say the words, the vowel. And then having said them whether I could even keep it. And New Mallory was really interesting. They kept silence. It wasn't a dead silence. It was really a worked silence, sort of like, you know, the noble silence that we practice here. You know, we speak when we have to, but otherwise we're quiet. And I remember early in the mornings we'd go into this dark church or vigils, three in the morning. And you'd walk in there and it would just be cold stone and candle wax. So you had the smell of the place before you ever saw it. And there in the dark, the monks are sitting along each side and antiphonally they're singing the chants back and forth, back and forth. And then they would stop. And for me, the stopping was the larger part because, you know, I'd gone there for to really listen to whether or not I had a vocation to be a priest. And what I learned was how to sit in the quiet and really let it hold me. And every year, every time I would drive up to New Mallory, I'd have to go to the gate. And in the gatehouse was Father Joe, this really old monk. And, you know, Father Joe was this kind of quiet, warm person. And I didn't have the language for it then, but he was sort of like just emptied out somehow. And I would roll up to the gate, you know, with all of my whole mind of questions kind of squinting at a God that I couldn't quite make out. And really straining to bring something blurry into focus. And, you know, there was Father Joe, just clear as a bell. Didn't have to do anything to see him. And, you know, he was just simply the guy that was always there, super clear, the way of face is the first time you recognize it. And Father Joe, he never asked what I had come there to decide. He just opened the gate. And as I would drive through that gate, I would look at him the way that you would look at somebody that you just can't quite explain, but you can't take your eyes off. So what is this view that you already have? What is this view that you already have? And, you know, I want to be precise because in our tradition, right view has a much larger sense than I'm going to be talking about tonight. You know, the teachings of right view really unfold in an understanding of suffering, its cause, its end, and the path. And I'm just going to be standing in the doorway tonight with all of you. And I'm really interested in the seeing that makes the doorway visible in the first place. So in this sense, you know, right view is what is actually right in front of you without the story that we start to put on top of it. So, you know, think about a green apple. You know, you see this green apple and almost immediately your mind is putting layers of story on top of the green apple. You know, this green apple is delicious. This green apple is rotten. I want that green apple. You know, whatever it may be. And before all that, there's just the seeing the way things are as they are. You know, arising, passing, changing, and all of us, you know, part of that movement underneath it. And you know, this isn't a belief about the world. It's a clear sight of it. Clear sight of it. And you know, the Buddha once gave Bahia a teaching about right view in a single moment on a street. And you know, Bahia was this guy who was an ascetic who a David told one time, you really need to go to the Buddha and get a teaching from him. And so he searched high and low for the Buddha and he finds him in this town and really, you know, the Buddha's teaching already. And he sort of demands, you know, you've got to teach me something. So the Buddha turns to him and this comes out of the O'Donoh and the Pali Canon, by the way. But the Buddha said only this. In the scene, there will be only the scene. In the herd, only the herd. In the felt, only the felt. When you hear, you are just hearing. There is no you, Bahia, in connection with those experiences. This and only this is the end of stress and suffering. So there's no you in connection with these experiences. And they say further in the story that this was all that was necessary for Bahia to have a complete awakening. And what I love about this and has always struck me about this story is really how little is added to it. I mean, you have the scene before we drape the story over it. You have the herd before we argue about what we have heard. And then you have the felt before there's any sort of verdict about what that means for us. Like what does that say about us? So nothing is added. Actually something's unadded. You know, here it's just pure bear awareness. You know, here's sort of the difficulty about this. You know, you can't like turn your eyes around and sort of inspect them. And you can't step outside of your own seeing to inspect it as well. And that sounds like it could be a problem, but really it isn't. It's a relief because you didn't build your eyes. All you did this morning was wake up and the world was already there. The face of someone you love. Maybe it was the steam rising from the kettle of water for your tea. It didn't work for it. It was just given. And when you sleep, sleep, when you eat, eat, and when you see, just see. There was a teacher 300 years ago in Japan, Banki, who actually loved because Banki was a kind of a rebel. Banki taught ordinary people, you know, the farmers, people who didn't read the sutras. And he had a way of teaching that supported them in the understanding. And you know, that's one of the hardest things a teacher can do. Well, one day one of his students came up to him and asked him a question. And this comes out of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. This is number 75. It's the temper, you know, like anger. A Zen student came to Banki and complained, Master, I have an ungovernable temper. How can I cure it? Well, you have something very strange, replied Banki. Let me see what you have. Well, just now I can't show it to you, replied the other. Well, when can you show it to me? Banki asked. It arises unexpectedly, replied the student. Then concluded Banki, it must not be your own true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born, you did not have it. And your parents did not give it to you. Think that over. So what Banki's talking about there, you know, is this clear mind before the temper and the clear mind after the temper, which he called the unborn. The awake mind already working, you know, requiring us to do nothing. When you're using it right now to hear me. So Banki never asked anyone to acquire it. He just literally pointed at what was already there. You know, right view, bear awareness, the unborn. And you sit with that for just a minute. Here we have this monk, the Zen student, who carried his temper as his nature. You know, is there something that maybe you've carried? Maybe you've carried it for years as your nature. You're like, I'm the anxious person, or I'm the person that can't forgive, or maybe I can't see clearly all of these stories that we tell ourselves. Banki would look at you, lean in and ask you to show it to me. You know, right here, right now. And you couldn't because it's not the thing you are. And this anger or temper or anxiety or whatever it is, you know, it's like a cloud. It isn't innate. It comes when the conditions come. It goes when the conditions go. And it crosses the eye. But it isn't the eye, right? And so maybe you've been spending years of your life squinting at this flaw in your vision. This thing that you thought was a flaw in your vision. And it was really just the passing weather. It wasn't a flaw at all. The passing weather on a clear eye. And the seeing underneath that the whole time was clear. Seeing what is actually here before you add your story to it. Even now. And you know, here's what I think the clear eye asks of us. It is an effort. I think it's nerve. Because some of what is actually here is what we least want to look at. Think about this. I mean, I could tell you, I don't like looking at growing old, but it happens. Everybody that I love is growing old. I'm sure we all have this story, you know, things that we know are, we don't want to see, necessarily. And also knowing that nothing we can hold ultimately is going to stay. That's a lot. And you know, the Buddha saw old age and sickness and death before he saw anything else. And what made him the Buddha is the fact that he didn't look away. He didn't look away. And so right view is that choice that we make, you know, in the morning when we get up. And again in the afternoon, you know, to see this world clearly and to keep our eyes open to it. You know, and I also want you to hear me carefully here because I think some of this could be misheard. You know, I'm not telling you that you're suffering is only the weather. Because I think what grieves us is real. And what was done to us happened. And some of what the clear eye sees really should never have happened. But it did. So the clear eye isn't the isn't only the eye that looks away. It's the eye that stops adding a second sorrow on top of the first. And for example, that this whole lonely story is just yours, or that no one will understand what you're going through. And that something is wrong with the fact that you're hurting. You know, that's the weather. The grief itself is just true. So right view doesn't dissolve these sorrows of the world. It really clears the lonely fog around them so that we can turn and face them and know that we're not alone. So I once taught a religion class. And one afternoon after class, Amanda came up to me and she was in tears. She had just moved to Chicago. And this was her fifth move in nine years. And she just knew that things were finally going to start working out with her, working out for her in the city. And she said, however, that she was already starting to see this same thing that was starting to happen. You know, having moved to the new city, just the same pattern starting over in this new place. But this was a little bit different because she wasn't only hoping she had really already begun to see. She had in a way caught herself in the middle of this pattern. And it really broke her open because some part of her knew that the next town wasn't going to save her. And that kind of catching is the eye opening. So she knew so much more and was clearer than she really thought. And you know, I wish I could remember what I said to her. I don't, but I know what I would say now. Not to her, but really to you. That, you know, for all of us, there's no town, there's no other town where your life is just going to start working out. You know, there's not another place, not another next year. No move, no version of yourself. It's just one move away and everything will be okay. You know, that life that you keep moving toward is what you're actually living right now, right in this room. And you know, I think many of us wait. I know sometimes I'm waiting, but many of us wait. You know, maybe not with moving boxes, but we still wait. You know, maybe waiting for a relationship to settle, waiting for our job to be enough, waiting for that time where we're just like, oh, okay, now I can live my life, you know, now I can show up, now I can be kind. And the years that you spent at the front of this gate, certain that it wasn't open, you know, these are years of your life. I mean, think about that. That's the cost. The deep cost. It's not a belief you've got wrong, but a life that you're here for and shouldn't miss. And as far as I know, Amanda stayed. But what mattered for her is what was already happening. You know, she stopped waiting for another city to live her life and she stopped moving from the one that she was in. And don't mistake that for not doing anything. You know, the scene was given to her. The staying she had to choose. You know, every time that there was a cold winter and she decided not to go, or every time she thought about calling the moving company and she didn't. You know, she simply turned and decided, you know, this is my life. I will live it as it is. And you know, this is the same turn that's being asked of us tonight in this room. You know, not the life that begins once we feel our mind is fully settled or that we're totally at peace. But this life in this room in this moment right now. So the eye opens on its own and what you do next is up to you. And that's where we're going to turn now to right intention. So the first fold right view is the eye and it sees. And the second fold right intention is the first thing that the eye asks of you. Because when you have a clear sight, that isn't neutral. It's not neutral at all. The moment that you truly see that you're not separate from another person and that you're suffering doesn't have a gap between you and their suffering. Something in you turns and that turning is right intention. You know, the eye opens and the heart leans. And these are not two. You know, this is why the ancestors called them the two folds of wisdom. You know, one sees, one moves and they are not two. Now the sutras, they describe right intention, that leaning in three different ways. You know, the intention of letting go rather than grasping. The intention of love and kindness rather than will and the intention of compassion rather than harm. So it's three ways of leaning in the same direction toward the world instead of against it. And they're not three rules. They're three inclinations. And it's the tilt of a life really that having seen clearly, you know, can't, you know, having seen turn away. And, you know, with this, we practice something so simple. It almost goes without raising, but I feel like it's so important. Gather your attention. You know, gather your attention. What is your mind doing right now? Notice what your mind is doing right now. And then recall your intention, the way that you meant to lean. And this is the whole path really done in miniature. You know, we do this hundreds of times a day where you can gather your attention and recall your intention. And, you know, here's the thing about leaning. You know, the moment that you really decide to lean toward something like really lean with all of your weight, that's not an accident. That's a choice because you said this way, you know, you chose a direction. Now, this is the direction I'll go. And you've made a vow. And if you're honest, it may not be a vow that you always keep. Now, many of us have made vows. Think about a vow that you've taken. Think about it right now. You know, maybe it was a vow from you to another. You know, I do, I will, I will be there for you. Maybe it involved ceremony like the precepts on your knees. You know, I won't take what is not mine. You know, I won't cloud the mind. I won't lie. Maybe it was a vow you just made to yourself. You know, I will raise this child well. Or, you know, I'll show up and be a better friend. It's different words, but the same shape. And when you took that vow, you meant it with your whole being. And still, maybe even as the words left to your mouth, you knew that there was something that you might not be able to guarantee it. Not in the future, not maybe the person you'll become at some point in the future. But you took the vow anyway. And why do we do this? Why do we take these vows? You know, they're not a prediction. They're not a forecast of how we're going to behave. It's this direction that you turn your body. You know, you're not vowing that you will never falter, that you will never stumble, because you probably will. What you're saying is which way you intend to face now and when you get up. And you know, every tradition out there has this similar fault line, you know, of a person taking a vow who may not keep it. And you know, the ceremony of taking vows is real. I mean, ask anybody who's gone through Jukai. I mean, it's a transformative experience. But the one who rises up from the vow is still human. And you know, the rakasu doesn't cover the fault line. It's kind of sewn right over it. There's a teaching in the Jewish tradition that I find really amazing. And you know, later this month, there'll be the kol nedre, which is latter part of September. It's the eve of Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement,