I am allowed to taste the juice of the tiger's words. Good morning. Try to keep track of the time so we have some time at the end for some discussion. This is our last lecture of the year. It's the end of the year and the Zen Center will be closed now for 10 days until New Year. We just had Rohatsu Zeshin during the first week of December, the last month of the year. And tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, and then next week there will be Christmas.

[01:08]

So there seems to be a clustering of holidays. by this time of the year, which is the winter solstice as well. Rohatsu commemorates the enlightenment of the Buddha and actually celebrates the enlightenment of all being. Celebration that we live in an enlightened universe. And Hanukkah also represents the enlightenment of all humanity. On Hanukkah you light the menorah, and that's what the menorah stands for.

[02:13]

Well, the branches. and all the lights that are lit every night. So it seems to be a similar theme. And Christmas is the birth of Christ. And Christ is seen by Christians as bringing light to the world. the light of the world. And this is happening at the time, like I said, of the winter solstice, where there is the least amount of light in this atmosphere at least. and we're getting ready to go into winter.

[03:22]

So it seems that there's this emphasis on light and on relying in our own intrinsic radiance at a time when there's the the earth seems to be going into a time of darkness. Christmas is on the 25th of December and the 25th of December was a Roman festival and for the Romans it was a pagan festival in the sense of a relationship with nature and represented the day of the unconquerable sun and hoping that the sun would return at this time when the sun seems to be most furthest away and the

[04:41]

and Hanukkah was the... spiritually it means that the menorah symbolizes the enlightenment of humanity or that humanity is already enlightened which is the more Buddhist sense but it also has a history to it and there was a time when the Greeks conquered the Jews and went into the temple and destroyed it and rededicated it to their gods and it was a time of the winter solstice and So Hanukkah celebrates the Jews coming back and retaking the Temple and rededicating it. So it seems that in monotheism there is a struggle between the spiritual and the physical.

[06:03]

monotheism and paganism, do we worship the sun or do we rely instead on our intrinsic nature, our inner life? In Buddhism, we try to stay away from this duality of light and darkness, body and mind, the physical and the spiritual. Because there's always some light and darkness, and there's some darkness and light.

[07:07]

That's what the Tsantrakai says. Right in the midst of light, there's darkness. And right in the midst of darkness, there's light. So right in the midst of darkness, in this month of darkness, there we find light. And actually, in Zen, the absolute is described as pitch darkness. We usually talk about enlightenment, but actually pretty often it's described as this enlightenment doesn't mean really light. Again, so it's not relying on light or darkness. So, you know, there's this famous story of the teacher and the student talking late into the night, and their conversation's over, and the student asks the teacher for a lamp to go back to his quarters, and the teacher gives him the lamp and blows it out.

[08:24]

And at that moment, the student has some realization in this complete darkness. Mel was talking about the five ranks in the last practice period. And one of the five ranks is this dark mirror. So that Zazen is like going into darkness and sitting in perfect darkness. We sit in the morning at five in the morning or at night and the zendo is always very cave-like, very dark. And sometimes I like to turn the light a little bit higher and the zendo manages it.

[09:28]

No, no, no, no. Turn it down. It's too bright. We want it dark. So this is kind of a dark mirror of zazen, which is this non-dualistic darkness. And so that darkness is like going into Zazen totally blindly without making any discrimination about this thought or that thought or this feeling or that feeling. Is this a good thought or a bad thought? Should I think or should I not think? And so on and so forth. Whereas light, when there's light, then there's all this discrimination. You can see all these different forms. So the dark mirror is this darkness without discrimination.

[10:31]

And then when there's light, the mirror still doesn't have an inherent nature. So the mirror in that sense is always dark anyway. Even in the light, there's darkness. If the mirror doesn't have a nature of its own, the mirror just reflects. But in those reflections, you can see different forms. And so that's the discrimination side, the light side, or the relative side. So this light that we talk about in Zen does not depend on discrimination or conditioning.

[11:42]

So in that sense, it's not the light and darkness of the night and day or the winter and summer. Darwin says, you know, winter does not become, summer does not become winter, and winter does not become spring, and so on. Just winter's in a state of being winter, and summer's in a state of being summer. So, there isn't this sense of conditioning. this chain of causal origination which the whole of nature is the cycle, cycles of the seasons and so on and so forth. So light and darkness, night and day are part of that. Whereas light in the non-dualistic sense

[12:49]

is unconditioned. So it's free from being light or darkness or can be expressed as light or darkness. So we don't have to depend on the physical sun to stay warm or to be warm. I think that the birth of Christ also has this meaning of, what does it mean that's an immaculate conception and a virgin birth? I mean, that's like a koan in some ways. You can take it on the surface and it can be easily dismissed.

[13:53]

But if we take it as a koan, then maybe it has a different meaning. So again, what is this utter darkness, this unborn nature that is not born or doesn't die, and yet is always being born and always dying? And this utter darkness, also it's like the mirror really doesn't exist. There isn't even a dark mirror. Because even the mirror doesn't exist. So then there's no dust that can fall anywhere. There's no place for the dust to fall, right?

[14:57]

Which was the dialogue between the fifth patriarch and the sixth patriarch in Zen. So nothing can be defiled, so everything is original. You know, another name for darkness, utter darkness, is stopping all our activities. Like, we stop all the activities of the mind and just go into this darkness blindly, without discriminating, and sitting, doing nothing. And this is what Darwin calls the backward step, that turns our light inward. This stopping of activities, this sitting without a... doing something without a gaining idea is what turns this inward light and brings it forward.

[16:08]

We sat Rohatsu for seven days making great effort And although we're making great effort, still we're not doing anything. You know, all the Jewish holidays begin at night. The holy days, the Sabbath is a holy day. They all begin at night, in darkness. And so in darkness, this light is turned on. Candles are lit. And all the holidays are considered Sabbath of rest. And Sabbath comes from the root word Shevet, which means to sit. So to sit and to rest and do nothing.

[17:18]

Does it really mean to not to do anything? Again, that's like a Zen Jewish koan. You know, and then you get all the trying to split hairs and pin it down, what activities are non-activities and so on and so forth. But it's really a question of how do we find this rest, this non-activity within activity. There is a story of a rabbi and his students. And the students start doubting, you know, say, well, what if we observe the Sabbath on another day? You know, instead of a Friday, we did it on another day. But we have the same experience.

[18:23]

So the rabbi tells them, well, go ahead and try it out. And so they do everything and they prepare for it, and they do it on a different day. And they find out that it's the same thing. It's the same Sabbath. So then they go back, you know, and they're kind of in disarray. Does this mean, you know, what about, you know, oh, the sixth day and the seventh day, and they're supposed to be different, and God rested on the seventh day, and so on and so forth. And the answer of the rabbi is, Well, you know, where do you think the Sabbath goes after the seventh day? Does it go somewhere? So the Sabbath is really not going anywhere. And that's what Sabbath is. So, it's just that it's brought forth, but it's always there.

[19:27]

And just like you can bring it forth on the seventh day, you can bring it forth on another day. So that's very Zen. Seventh is this sight of stillness within movement. You know, and I think that the festivals and the holidays have this kind of meaning as well. You know, they put a stop to the rat race. There's a rat race going on out there. Samsara, you know, the secular world is built on this rat race. Goals and objectives. Measuring time. Counting things. Counting money. Productivity. So on and so forth. I mean, the whole capitalism is built on this utilitarianism, right? That's the British philosophy, right?

[20:33]

The built capitalism. And so, finding utility in things. What's this good for? How much can I gain from this? What are your objectives? How long is it going to take you to do it? And we come with that kind of mind, we come to Zazen. And that's why we have so much trouble with it. And the man is always telling us, you know, don't try to think, well, when's the bell going to ring? How long is this going to go for? What am I getting out of this? And so on and so forth. So we bring in this samsara, the secular world, into the realm of practice, and it just turns into suffering. So the holidays, in a way, put a stop to that.

[21:39]

People stopped working. And instead of, you know, well, I give you this and you have to give me that, and I'm gonna make so much out of this, and so on and so forth, there's gift giving, giving gifts for no particular reason. That's one way of seeing the exchange of gifts. Although there are a lot of people who make a lot of money out of people buying gifts, Um... Um... So if we didn't have this, these holidays, or these sashims, you know, to put a stop to that, we would really drive each other crazy.

[22:45]

We'd drive ourselves crazy. Um... So we have to come back to this original nature, this inward light, this doing something for no purpose in order to find our sanity. And then we go back into the rat race and work and think in terms of goals and objectives, achievement. going to school, taking exams, pass or fail, getting degrees. There's all this achievement, right? Orientation. The whole society is built on this achievement, orientation, and it doesn't look like it's going to change. That's just the way it is. That's just the way samsara is. So, So we come to Zazen to find out how to balance this movement and stillness.

[23:58]

And you can't separate the two. Because in the midst of that movement nirvana is also there. It's just that we don't see it. And it's covered over by this achievement orientation. And It gives us a lot of anxiety and worry. Am I doing a good job? Am I going to get a promotion? More money? Less money? So on and so forth. So, it's really difficult to be in the midst of that and to not be moved by it, not to be thrown off and go into sort of a worried, anxious state.

[25:15]

And that's really, you know, our challenge in our practice, that we, you know, come and practice Sachine intensively and find our center in the non-activity of activity or the activity of non-activity. And then we go back, it's not to work in our daily life and our family life and so on and so forth. And it's not so easy to find that, to find nirvana in the midst of that, to find that place of stillness in the midst of all that activity. To, you know, be driving to work and not get into this thing of, ooh, I'm late, you know, and I'm going to be late and so I have to rush. and then everybody's rushing and tense and on edge and honking and so on and so forth. So we have to bring with us this sense of doing something for no particular reason, for no reason.

[26:32]

So, driving to work, but you think you're going somewhere, but you're really not going anywhere. You think you have a career and you're going somewhere, but you're really not going anywhere. Career, you know, Latin, carrera, race. Racing, you know, competing. So how do you have a career? How are you in a race just for the sport, right? To be a good sport just for the sake of it. And you're not going anywhere. So how do we bring forth our luminous nature in the midst of that darkness of being in a career.

[27:49]

I'm a psychologist and I work in a mental health clinic and I'm the director. administrators and excuse me in the state because there's shortage of money more and more they're becoming more the state management by objectives you know when you have to they want me to keep track you know of all the monies you know on the billings and how much money the clinics bringing in and so different dimension into the purpose of the clinic, which is basically to be there to help people, you know, who are in pain. And then, you know, they want us to write these treatment plans by goals and objectives, right? So,

[28:51]

I'm supposed to write, well, a person will have only two delusions a month. Or no delusions at all. So how is that supposed to heal anybody? There you're in the realm of suffering and samsara. And it's supposed to be a treatment plan to help somebody be free from delusion and from pain. Can't do that. But if you say, I can't do that, then they say, well, I'm sorry. This is the way we have to do it. Maybe you need to go work somewhere else. And since most places are becoming that way, then there's nowhere to go.

[29:56]

So in that place, how do we find our freedom? How do we find the goalless goal, right? Same koan, gateless gate, goalless goal. So how do I get somebody to have only two delusions a month? Well, what about my delusion? I'm getting you to have no delusions. So, it's like if you want, Mel was talking about this, if you want the cart to move, do you hit the horse or the cart? You want somebody to have no delusions, you have to hit the cart. heart is yourself. So I have to start with my own delusions first if I want somebody else to have no delusions. So that's like listening to their delusions without my own delusions and without any expectations

[31:16]

I'd like to say something on behalf of women. taking on even more responsibility. And I know growing up in a Christian tradition, there was always the sense that there was a body of stuff I should do. I should take the family to see the nutcracker. I should make cookies to hang on the tree. I should, I should, I should. And if I had done all those things, I would have just collapsed.

[32:30]

And so I think, I know for myself, when I get around this time of year, this sitting becomes a real regrouping time to not only sit in stillness, but the thoughts that come up become really clearly Quiet and Lily are very clearly crazy. And I read across a quote lately from the monk, Homeless Kodo, and he said, in and of itself.

[33:35]

So eating is in the stage of eating and shitting is in the stage of shitting. You don't say, oh good, I'm glad I'm going to have this meal because later... What a joy, right? Same as we don't say, oh good, later I'm going to get a big prize. Yeah. Well, actually, you know, your first comment, uh, this, uh, morning, um, I didn't come to Zazen at six because my, uh, wife, uh, asked me to, um, baby's been waking up at five and not going back to sleep, and she hasn't been sleeping much. So she asked me to, uh, you know, wake up but be with the baby, uh, so she could sleep. Um, and, uh, So I did that. And then today we're going to have a party at night for the kids, you know, for Hanukkah.

[34:48]

So there's, you know, things to do around the house. But yet there was this wonderful feeling, you know, of that it's just this celebration for no... I mean, there's a purpose, but it's not for a particular purpose. And then all these children are going to be there and we're going to give them gifts. And it's just this very warm feeling that I had about it. But we'd get out of it.

[36:03]

It's a fact that people, I think, I remember reading that people tend to die more around this time of year than the other time of the year. It's an interesting kind of irony. They also commit suicide. So what is the irony? Well, the irony is that it's Well that's the dualistic side, the dualistic light or the dualistic happiness and when it's looked at dualistically then the opposite comes back or comes up right away, so death and darkness.

[37:21]

It's about bringing enlightenment to all. I love that, because my experience of Hanukkah, I've always said, no, I frequently have a problem with it, because I have all these children's stories, and it's always the soldiers battling away, and who's winning the war, and victorious, and then, you know, sacrificing in the temple. And it's really, I'd really like to make the stretch to bringing enlightenment for all being, but I have this problem with Hanukkah being of such a warlike nature. I like that sense, that other symbolism. Right, so that's the dualistic side of Hanukkah. And yet, it's also being able to be allowed to do this practice of turning the light inward, of turning the inward light.

[38:42]

Because sometimes, I mean, there are periods in history where people are not allowed to practice. So in a way, we count our blessings that, you know, we live in a state where Buddhism is allowed to exist, Yes, it's an interesting thought brought up by Ron. I was with some friends last night and the subject came up of how come the person that I was with was telling me how come Christmas holiday seems to be so painful. And I've heard that many, many times from many people. this paradox, this cruel joke where this should be the most joyous time of all when the light of the world comes to us and yet many people are just completely overwhelmed, a sense of cynicism, a sense of falseness,

[40:03]

I think that, from what I hear about the depression, the sheer depression that people go through, comes from the bottom falling out of their hopes and dreams. I mean, something as profound as, you know, I'm curious, you know, I, like you, I'm also Jewish, and to me, the holiday was always just, just fun. You know, people put lights on their houses and, you know, their trees, and, you know, at my house, you know, we lit these candles, and we bet on them to see which one was gonna burn out first. And it was always just,

[41:10]

very fun. And I told my friends I was talking to last night about this and they thought that was odd. I don't think it's so odd. My feeling about it is that it's exactly what you say about sitting zazen for a purpose. If you sit zazen for a purpose, it becomes six months. And I think that when people approach Christmas holiday or, you know, with this thing of like, we're going to have a joy god damn it. You know, it all just turns into misery. And all of their efforts seem hopeless. So I think that when one doesn't, so a Jewish person wanders into this Christian culture and everybody's putting lights on their houses, and wow, that's neat, you know?

[42:20]

Because there isn't this tremendous, I think, you know, Hanukkah, I think a lot of Jewish people take it pretty lightly. It's not the heaviest of all the spiritual things of Jewish faith. And I think that, I just think that it's a measure of how of not having these pinning all your hopes, not pinning all your hopes, not grasping for something that binds this whole phenomenon of severe depression around Christmastime and severe discouragement in the practice of Buddhism. Okay, so we do that, then we're killing life, right? life again. So it's better to die where we are living, rather than to find life in death. Yes? I think it's more than that.

[43:22]

I really, I think what happens is that, and I hope we're not going to go on as we are forever, because I don't think we have much time to keep going on as we are. I mean, I think this season simply brings out the contradiction between what we say we are and what we actually are. I mean, I think my sense of you and your spiritual tradition is that you have a tribe and a community that you belong to, and that this feels rich at this time of year. For me, growing up in a nominal brought out the misery that was somehow smoothed over during the rest of the year. And I think people in this culture generally, the way we live, makes us frantic and miserable.

[44:26]

Just living where people next to you are so Yes. I've been appreciating everything people have been saying, starting with Kathy's remark. When I was a child, I thought my mother was having the greatest time, because that's how it is for a kid. I'm wondering right now if it actually is supposed to be the most joyous time. For us in this hemisphere, it's the darkest time. I think the celebration is to remind us that joy is possible and that hope is there or will return, just as the light will return, but it doesn't return right away.

[45:40]

It's dark. It's the beginning of winter. It's just going to be dark for a while. So I think growing up in a Christian home where Christmas was a big deal, I've learned to associate this time of year with tremendous expectation. And so I can, you know, the misery is quite available to me. But if I lessen that and realize it's a celebration, it's bringing light to the darkness, but the point is it's dark. You know, and that you do kind of hole up and stop activity. Maybe we're just expecting ourselves to be in this wonderful joy. Maybe that's not exactly what it's about. It's about bringing some joy and light to the darkest, most private, most absolute time of the year. Well, I mean, it depends what we mean by darkness and what we mean by joy. If it's joy that's the opposite of pain, then you can say, well, maybe that's not true joy.

[46:50]

So true joy is the joy that's of the unconditioned, that does not depend on pain or pleasure. Hope or not hope. Time to end? Okay, thank you. He's our number one.

[47:29]

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