A Dharma Talk by Rojin Genyo (Steve LeFevre)

You are seen.

You are heard.

You are welcome here.

You are not alone.

Nothing to fix.

Nothing to prove.

Nothing to achieve.

Just this life—

as it is.

Tonight we continue our journey along the Noble Eightfold Path.

We’ve explored Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and Right Effort.

And now we arrive at Right Mindfulness.

For many people, mindfulness has become a buzzword. It’s on phone apps. Coffee mugs. Corporate wellness seminars.

Sometimes it gets reduced to stress reduction, or productivity, or a way to become a more efficient version of ourselves.

But the Buddha was pointing toward something much deeper.

Mindfulness is not about squeezing more out of life.

It is about fully arriving in life.

And that is becoming increasingly difficult. Because we live in a world that is constantly trying to sell us the next moment.

This Moment Is Not For Sale

A while back I was talking with a plumber. He said something that stuck with me. He laughed and said:

“Time is money.”

We’ve all heard that phrase. Every minute has a price. Every moment has a cost. Every second is something to spend, save, optimize, or monetize.

And if we’re not careful, we begin to treat our own lives that way. Even our spiritual lives.

We start asking: Am I progressing? Am I improving? Am I getting anywhere? Am I doing enough?

We turn mindfulness into another self-improvement project. Another thing to achieve. Another thing to sell ourselves.

But mindfulness isn’t trying to get somewhere.

Mindfulness is the willingness to be here.

This breath. This body. This sound. This feeling. This life.

The moment we try to turn mindfulness into a product, we’ve already stepped away from it.

Because this moment is not for sale.

And neither are you.

Attention

There is a Zen story. A student approached Master Ichu and said: “Please write for me something of great wisdom.”

The master picked up his brush and wrote one word:

Attention.

The student looked at it and said, “Is that all?”

The master wrote again:

Attention. Attention.

The student was frustrated. “I don’t understand. What does ‘attention’ mean?”

The master wrote one final time:

Attention. Attention. Attention.

That is the whole teaching. Not a technique. Not a system. Not a product.

Just this: pay attention. To what is actually here.

And yet — how rarely we do.

Every-Minute Zen

There is another story about a student named Tenno, who had just completed his formal training and arrived at his master Nan-in as a newly certified teacher.

The master greeted him and asked a simple question: “When you came in from the rain, did you leave your umbrella to the left or the right of your sandals?”

Tenno stopped. He had no answer. He had walked through the door, removed his umbrella and sandals, and had no awareness of where they landed.

He had been moving through his day — even arriving at his master’s home — without being present in his own body, in his own steps, in his own actions.

Tenno became a student again. He trained for six more years.

What he was learning, we might call every-minute Zen. Not just sitting meditation. Not just formal practice.

But bringing the same quality of presence to putting down an umbrella as to reciting a sutra.

The body is always here. It is always in this moment. The mind wanders — backward into regret, forward into worry — but the body never leaves the present.

This is why the breath is our anchor. Not because breathing is special. But because it is always happening, right here, in this body, in this moment.

The body is our first and most faithful teacher of mindfulness.

What Lies Beneath the Thoughts

I want to be honest with you about something.

I sit on my porch some mornings with my dogs. The bees are in the roses. Kids ride bikes in the street. The trees are full. The air is warm. Ten thousand things happening all at once — an unrepeatable moment.

And underneath all of it, a voice is running: Am I doing enough? Am I a good person? Am I going to lose my job?

Now — I could tell you that’s just a thought, and that’s true. But if I stop there, I’m only seeing half of it.

Because underneath the thought, there is a feeling.

A tightness. A weight in the chest. A low hum of anxiety that was there before the thought even formed words.

Mindfulness asks us to notice that feeling too. Not to analyze it. Not to fix it. Not to argue with it.

Just to say: this is here. I feel this. This is what this moment actually feels like in my body.

That honesty — that willingness to feel what is actually present — is not weakness. It is the practice.

When we stop running from the feeling and simply acknowledge it, something shifts. The grip loosens. Not because the feeling disappears, but because we stopped fighting it.

The bees are still there. The roses are still there. The anxiety is still there.

And we are present to all of it, together, at once.

That is the unrepeatable moment.

We Are Not Our Thoughts

One of the great discoveries of mindfulness is that thoughts are events.

They arise. They linger. They pass.

Yet we spend much of our lives believing every thought that appears.

A thought says: “I’m failing.” And we believe it.

A thought says: “I’m behind.” And we believe it.

A thought says: “I’m not enough.” And we believe it.

But mindfulness allows us to see something extraordinary.

The thought is happening. And the awareness of the thought is also happening. They are not the same thing.

The sky is not the cloud.

The mirror is not the reflection.

The awareness is not the thought.

And this begins to loosen the grip. Not because we destroy the thought. But because we stop becoming it.

The Jar of Water and Sediment

In our talk on Right Effort, we spoke about the mind like a jar filled with water and sediment.

If we constantly shake the jar, the sediment swirls everywhere. The water becomes cloudy. We can’t see clearly.

The answer isn’t to force the sediment to disappear. The answer is to stop shaking the jar. To let things settle.

Mindfulness is often like that. We’re not trying to create a perfect mind. We’re not trying to remove thoughts or feelings. We’re learning to stop stirring the water.

And little by little, clarity appears on its own. Not because we forced it. But because we stopped interfering.

The Meaning of 108

Many of us have heard the number 108. There are 108 beads on a mala. Many temples ring the bell 108 times at New Year’s.

Why 108? One of the most traditional explanations comes from Buddhist psychology.

We begin with the six senses: Eyes. Ears. Nose. Tongue. Body. Mind.

Each can experience: Pleasant. Unpleasant. Neutral. — 6 × 3 = 18

Wholesome or unwholesome: 18 × 2 = 36

Past, present, or future: 36 × 3 = 108

108 possible ways we become entangled. 108 ways we grasp. 108 ways we resist. 108 ways we get lost.

The bell is not punishment. The bell is compassion.

Each ring says: Wake up. Come back.

And the Nembutsu — the calling of Amida’s name — is its own kind of bell. Each recitation is a returning. A moment of entrusting. A practice of gratitude made audible.

The Cosmos and 108

What’s fascinating is that the number 108 also appears in nature. The sun’s diameter is approximately 108 times the diameter of the Earth. The distance from Earth to the Sun is roughly 108 solar diameters. The distance from Earth to the Moon is roughly 108 lunar diameters.

Whether exact or symbolic, 108 became a number pointing toward wholeness.

A reminder that our inner life and outer life are not separate. The same universe that spins galaxies is breathing through us right now.

Mindfulness is not escaping the cosmos. It is participating in it consciously.

The Cost of Missing Our Lives

The Buddha taught that suffering often comes from craving. And craving usually says: Not this. Something else. Somewhere else. Someone else. Another moment. A better moment.

We spend so much time waiting for life to begin. Waiting for retirement. Waiting for vacation. Waiting for enlightenment. Waiting for things to finally be okay.

And meanwhile, life keeps happening.

The tea cools. The child grows. The friend moves away. The season changes. The body ages. The moment passes.

Mindfulness gently asks: What if this is it?

Not as resignation. But as intimacy.

What if this moment, however imperfect, is the only place life can ever be lived?

Everyday Suchness

Rev. Gyomay Kubose taught: “The acceptance of true life as I am, as you are, or the condition in which you are — the true realization of fact is acceptance.”

Mindfulness is not perfect attention. It is acceptance. Not passive acceptance. Honest acceptance.

This is what is here. This is what is happening. This is what this moment feels like.

And from that honesty, wisdom begins to grow.

Gratitude Is the Practice

I want to name something that has been underneath this entire talk from the beginning.

Gratitude.

Not gratitude as a feeling we manufacture. Not gratitude as a performance. But gratitude as what naturally arises when we stop arguing with this moment and actually inhabit it.

When we pay attention — to the body, to the feeling beneath the thought, to the awareness that holds it all — something opens.

We begin to see that we have been held all along.

In Shin Buddhism, this is called shinjin — entrusting. Not the trust of certainty, but the trust that says: even now, even here, even as I am, I am not abandoned. The compassion of Amida moves through this moment whether I recognize it or not.

Shinjin does not ask you to be perfect. It asks you to trust that you don’t have to be.

And when that trust opens, even a little, gratitude is what we find has been here the whole time.

The White Path

There is an ancient parable from Master Shan-tao, a Pure Land teacher of 7th century China. It has been central to Jodo Shinshu ever since.

A traveler is journeying westward through dangerous wilderness. Bandits and wild beasts appear behind him. He runs.

He comes to the edge of a river — but it is not one river. It is two. On one side, a river of fire, its flames leaping twenty feet high. On the other, a river of violent, crashing water. And between them: a narrow white path, only a few inches wide, stretching from this shore to the far shore.

He cannot go back. He cannot stand still. The path is the only way forward — but fire and waves threaten it from both sides.

In that moment of complete desperation, he hears two voices.

From behind him, a voice urges: “Go forward. Do not fear. But if you remain here, you will surely die.”

From the far shore, another voice calls out: “Come just as you are. I will protect you. Do not fear the flames and the waves.”

And so he steps onto the white path.

One step. Then another. Fire on one side. Water on the other. But the path holds.

He crosses. He arrives.

Shan-tao tells us: the river of fire is our anger. The river of water is our greed. The bandits chasing us are the distractions and passions of this world. The narrow white path between the fire and the water — that is shinjin. That is entrusting.

And the voice from the far shore?

That is Amida. Calling to us not when we are ready, not when we are pure, not when we have fixed ourselves.

Calling to us now. Just as we are. Come.

Right mindfulness is learning to hear that voice. To walk the white path even with fire on one side and water on the other. To take the next step not because we are fearless — but because we have been called.

And in answering that call, gratitude blooms.

Amida’s Light

In Pure Land Buddhism, we often speak of Amida Buddha’s Infinite Light.

Sometimes people think that means a light somewhere far away. But perhaps mindfulness allows us to see something closer.

This breath. This sound. This moment. This life. Illuminated exactly as it is.

The light isn’t waiting for us at the end of the path. The light is what allows us to see the path at all.

As Taitetsu Unno reminds us, we are embraced just as we are. Not after we become mindful. Not after we become enlightened. Not after we improve ourselves.

Now.

A Simple Practice

So tonight I offer a very simple practice.

Take one breath. Just one.

Feel the body breathing. Notice the rise. Notice the fall.

Then notice: is there a feeling here? Not a thought about the feeling. Just the feeling itself. Where is it in the body? What does it actually feel like?

Don’t try to fix it. Don’t try to name it. Just let it be here, in your awareness, without resistance.

Notice that the breath is already happening. You are not manufacturing it. Life is already moving. Already supporting you. Already carrying you.

Just this breath. And then another. And another.

Not because we’re trying to become somebody. But because this moment deserves our attention.

Closing

The world will continue trying to sell you the next moment.

But the Dharma offers something different.

It offers this one.

This ordinary, unrepeatable, sacred moment.

Not for sale. Not for trade. Not for later. Only now.

Haiku

Nothing to purchase,

The breath arrives before thought,

Spring rain on still ponds.

May we meet this life as it is.

May we awaken again and again.

And may all beings find peace in the simple miracle of this moment.

Namo Amida Butsu.