Dharma Talk by Dr. Reeves - If at first you don't succeed

"If at first you don't succeed, try again!"
November 17, 2002

This morning it occurred to me that the saying: “If at first you don’t succeed, try again!” is not quite what the Lotus Sutra teaches. The Lotus Sutra teaches: “If at first you don’t succeed, try again creatively!” Not just try again, but try again creatively!

Buddhism is often said to be a religion that has to do with texts and precepts, for example: precepts for lay people, precepts for monks, precepts for nuns (they get the most), Bodhisattva precepts and so on. Many people see precepts as the heart and soul of Buddha dharma, but this is not what we find in the parables for which the Lotus Sutra is so famous.

The first parable we encounter in the Lotus Sutra is in Chapter 3 ? the parable of the burning house and the three kinds of vehicle. It is a relatively simple story. A wealthy father returns home to find his house on fire with his children inside. The father goes in so save the children. The first thing he does is to shout at them: ”Get out!”

But the kids are too busy playing to pay any attention to their father. So, second, he does a kind of thought experiment: “I’m strong,” he thinks, “I can put these children on a table or something and carry them out.” But then he realizes: “Well, this won’t work either, as the gate is too narrow.”

So, the first thing he tried did not work. His second idea didn’t work either. If he was going to save the children, the father would have to try something else. He remembered that these kids always wanted some carts with which to play. So he tells the kids that right outside the gate there are goat carts, and deer carts and ox carts just waiting for them. When the kids hear this, they can’t get out of the burning house fast enough.

When his children are all out of the house, the father is, of course, much relieved. But the kids, not seeing the carts, ask their father for them. The father knows, though, that he has warehouses full of much better things to offer to the kids than the carts he had originally promised, and he gives them enormous, really beautiful, highly decorated and adorned carriages drawn by white oxen.

The story is partially about these three or four kinds of vehicle and it may be a bit confusing, but one thing you should notice about this story is that this father is the Buddha, and when he sees the fire and the kids in it he starts looking for a solution, a way to save the children. He does a kind of natural thing first, he yells at them to get out, but that does not work. Then he does a kind of thought experiment, but realizes that too would not work. Then he gets creative, remembering what the children had always wanted, he tells them various kinds of carts are waiting for them outside-something that does work.

Now let’s think about the parable of the physician found in Chapter 16. This is the story in which a doctor/father goes away, leaving some medicine laying around the house. His children get into the medicine, making them very sick. The father comes home and finds them in bad shape, having taken this poison. So, he makes up an antidote for the poison and gives it to the kids telling them to drink it. Some of them do and they get better. Some of them are so far gone that they don’t have enough sense to take the antidote. So the father thinks to himself: “Well that partially worked, but it didn’t work completely. I’ve got to do something more.” He thinks that the way to change the situation is somehow to shock those kids into taking the good medicine. So he tells them he is going to go away, and later sends back a messenger telling the kids that their father had died. This works. The kids are shocked by the death of their father, take the medicine and recover from the poison. The father then returns home and everyone is happy.

Notice again this father, too, is a Buddha figure. He, too, makes mistakes. First, he made a mistake by leaving the poison lying around the house. Second, he tried an antidote that only partially works. So he had to try something else, something more creative. There is no rulebook saying that the thing to do when your kids don’t take medicine is to tell them you have died. He had to think up a solution for that particular situation using his creative imagination.

Now let’s consider the parable of the poor friend. This is the story, about a rich guy whose poor friend comes to his home. We can imagine them eating and drinking and having a good time. And the poor guy, who had been having a difficult time in life, maybe drinks too much wine and falls asleep, or passes out, on the sofa.

The rich friend has to go out on business. We’re not told what kind of business. He’s probably a merchant or something, and he has to leave. So he tries to help his friend by putting a very valuable gem into the garment of his poor friend. (I call this “the parable of the gem in a hem.”) And he goes away.

The next day, the poor friend wakes up, goes off and continues to have a hard time finding work and getting enough to eat. Some weeks later the two of them happen to meet again in another town. And the rich guy says (Remember, this rich guy is the Buddha): “What happened? Why are you still so poor? I gave you a jewel worth a lot of money! You could live off of it forever! Why are you still so poor? That jewel must still be in your robe. Look!” And sure enough, the jewel is still there. Finally the poor man goes off, supposedly sells the jewel, and lives happily from then on.

Notice that what this rich man tried to do also didn’t work at first. He put the jewel in the poor friend’s robe but the friend didn’t know. If they hadn’t happened to meet again by accident, we can imagine, the poor guy would have been poor for the rest of his life, still carrying around that jewel in his robe. So, it was partly by luck that the strategy of this rich friend worked at all.

There are, I think, at least four things we might learn, or think about, from these parables.

The first is the importance of making mistakes. We all know, I suppose, at least in our minds, that you can’t learn to walk without falling down. It’s a lesson we should never forget. Everything worthwhile in life costs something. It’s going to cost you mistakes, its going to cost you pain, and if you go through life trying all the time to avoid making any mistakes, you might as well not go through life at all. Life is an adventure, an adventure in which mistakes play an important role.

Think about biological evolution. It’s really a history of one mistake after another. What happens is that in passing on genes from one generation to another, lots of small mistakes happen. It’s not a perfect reproductive system. Most of those mistakes don’t amount to anything. They get forgotten about. But sometimes a mistake is good. It produces something which is in some little way beneficial to the species, helping it to succeed, that is, to survive. Through those mistakes, through a long history of such mistakes, from tiny little one-cell organisms to smaller creatures, reptiles and so forth, to mammals and to human beings, there is a whole line of development of what we think of as biological evolution.

So the lesson is, we should not be afraid to make mistakes. This is not, of course, about going around trying to make mistakes. The point is we shouldn’t be afraid to make mistakes.

Of course, learning from mistakes can involve being able to recognize them, to be able to see or know that one has made a mistake. Too often, I think, when we make a mistake we are prone to hide it, sometimes by giggling, sometimes be being secretive, sometimes hiding it even from ourselves.

So, the first lesson is don’t be afraid to make mistakes, and don’t be afraid to recognize your own mistakes. Don’t hide behind laughter or silence.

The second lesson we might learn from these parables is the importance of perseverance, trying again, staying with it, being devoted to something strongly enough that we don’t give up at our first failure. This notion of perseverance is very important in Buddhist teachings. It occurs for example as the sixth step of the eightfold path. It’s also the fourth of the six bodhisattva practices. Actually the Sanskrit in these two cases is different, but in Chinese and Japanese they are the same.

The idea is that it usually takes effort to accomplish much of anything worthwhile. There are lots of problems in this world. All of us have problems in our personal lives, we have problems in our communities, and we have problems in our countries. Sometimes these personal, political or worldwide problems seem overwhelming, and sometimes we think: “Oh, there is nothing I can do about poverty or injustice or world peace. I’m so small, so little, so powerless?and the problems are so big. I’ll just go take a nap and forget about it.”

Well, part of the point of emphasizing perseverance in Buddhism is to say that to get anywhere you have to take a step. And that’s all you have to take is one step. And then, of course, you have to take another. But the point is you have to take a first step and move in the right direction. That’s the idea of perseverance-not allowing yourself to be pushed down or defeated.

The third lesson we might learn from these parables is the importance of creativity, which is, I think, a kind of Buddhist wisdom.

Creative wisdom requires both, knowledge, and imagination. You have to know something about a situation in order to deal with it creatively. We are not talking about working from ignorance. The father/physician, for example, could not have made the antidote if he didn’t have some scientific skill, some knowledge. The father with the burning house with the kids inside would not have thought about getting them out by promising them carriages if he hadn’t known, or somehow realized, that that was what they really wanted. Some kind of knowledge is involved in all of these cases.

What’s needed is a kind of combination of knowledge and creativity, or use of the imagination. To be creative we have to be able to imagine things being different from what they are now.

Information very often involves understanding someone else. That’s why it is extremely important to be a good listener ? to be able to become aware of, not just to hear with ears, but to really become aware of what the real needs or concerns of another person are. It’s not enough just to give advice. You’ve got to know to whom you are giving advice, where they are coming from, what the real issues are and so on. That’s what I mean about knowledge. You have to be open to others, both in terms of learning about them and also learning from them, so that you yourself can grow.

In a sense, creative wisdom and paying attention to others is a matter of doing one’s best. In the Member’s Vow we speak of ”perfecting” ourselves. The idea of being creative, that is, is to use what’s given to us to make as much of ourselves as we can, to perfect ourselves.

And doing one’s best, from the point of view of the Lotus Sutra, is to develop or cultivate one’s Buddha nature. That’s what Buddha nature is all about! It’s not just a fancy theory. It’s about how you understand yourself, and to understand that within yourself is a great creative power, a potential to make an important difference both for yourself and for others. That’s doing your best. And, of course, in that sense it’s not just your best ? it’s the Buddha’s. That’s how the Buddha is present among us ? by developing the best that is in us. At your best you are the Buddha.

Now, the fourth point. What if you try, and you try again, and try again, and try again, and you are very persistent, and you still don’t succeed. What then?

Well, the answer of the Buddhist tradition is: “Get help. Get some help!” That’s why we have Hoza and the Sangha. That’s why we have communities of monks and nuns and laymen and laywomen. It’s because we are not on our own and shouldn’t be on our own. In the Buddhist tradition the importance of recognizing the Buddhist community, of getting help from one another, has always been very important.

Remember, at your best you are the Buddha, but so is your neighbor. The Buddha is one who could see the Buddha in others. So, when you try and at first you don’t succeed, try again, try again creatively and get some help from the Buddha, that is, from others.