the idea of form and emptiness. How do I find the emptiness? People are going around looking for emptiness, as if that's a kind of goal. But actually, all forms are the forms of emptiness, so you don't have to worry about finding emptiness, because everything is empty. There's nothing else but emptiness, and we call it form. So Zazen is important. In order to have a true practice, there has to be a rhythm of our practice, a rhythm for Zazen.

[01:01]

If we are close to the Zen-do, we can come to the Zen-do for practice. Sometimes people live farther apart, farther away from the Zen-do, and it's not so easy to come to the Zen-do on a regular basis. So then you have to find a way to practice Zazen by yourself or with some friends. But the main thing, two main things, one is to have a steady practice, which has a rhythm to it, of Zazen, and the other is to practice with other people. So, this important part of Zazen, even though it looks like we're practicing by We really can't do anything by ourself. We're always practicing with our surroundings.

[02:05]

We influence our surroundings and are influenced by our surroundings. So one of the important aspects of Mahayana Buddhism is giving away merit, so to speak. It's a funny word, merit, but it means whatever merit is accrued through one's practice, it's always offered to the universe. So instead of holding on to vehicle, a vehicle for light, for lack of a better word. So, Zazen opens us to light and light is transmitted through Zazen.

[03:14]

And this is, it's not like I am offering something, it's simply manifest through our practice. And this is our offering, called giving away merit. You can't really give anything away, but you allow this light, Buddha's light, to manifest, and it's freely offered to everyone. So when people practice together, that offering, that transmitting becomes very powerful. And everyone is benefited. And by sitting together, we also learn how to sit zazen. And to keep in touch with the sangha is

[04:19]

to strengthen our own practice and to add our strength to everyone else's practice. So practicing alone has benefits at times, and if you don't have access to Sangha, then you practice by yourself. But it's much more difficult. And so our practice Sitting together encourages all of us. It's a great encouragement, especially for something like Sashi, where we sit together for seven days. So sometimes we get tired of, you know, the rhythm of our Zazen. And sometimes we wonder why we're doing this.

[05:25]

And so it's good to, when you feel that way, to find some encouragement. Come to your teacher and look for some encouragement. And to find encouragement from our peers as well. It's very difficult to maintain a steady sansen practice for a long time. Because in our life, there's always... Life is like this, right? And rarely like this. Sometimes it's like this, but boom! So, you have to have a really strong sense of purpose in practicing in order to maintain that rhythm of practice over a long period of time.

[06:41]

So it's also important to study study informs us, keeps us informed about the Dharma, because our lives are so scattered sometimes, and when we're out in the world we don't get Dharma information, and our attention is not focus so much on what Buddhadharma is. So to study is to focus on the Dharma and keep us focused on Dharma. There's so many wonderful aspects of Buddhism to study. Study has to be interesting, but it doesn't have to be interesting. If you begin to study, you begin to see

[07:48]

your interest becomes sparked by study. I remember one time, a long time ago, I asked the residents, we were having dinner, residents' dinner, and I said, let's all, just at random, because dinner is in the library, just pick out a book at random and open it up at random, and each one read from that book, and it's very interesting how all those, whatever book, whatever volume you're reading from is connected to all the other volumes, and each one shines light on a certain aspect of the Dharma. So people say, well what should I study? I can recommend things to study, you know, there's Suzuki Roshi's talks, there's Dogen's wonderful talks that will take you the rest of your life to read.

[08:53]

There are all the sutras and commentaries, history, philosophy, all those aspects which broaden your mind and help you to practice. So there's a misunderstanding in Zen that it's beyond the scriptures. It is beyond the scriptures, but the scriptures help to get you beyond the scriptures. We don't ignore the scriptures. And then there's work practice. work practice has always been a very important part of Zen. When Buddhism first came in India, actually the monks did not work, they were not allowed to do any work, they just begged for their meals and did meditation and study.

[10:05]

But then when Buddhism moved to China, It's interesting, many of the Chinese schools in the early, around up to the 5th century maybe, had servants. They would study and then the servants would make tea for them, five or six times a day. They lived in a kind of luxurious way, but then there was a kind of revolt because the Chinese thought that everybody should work. Here were all these young men going to the monasteries, and the harvest was, you know, they needed them for the harvest, and to plant and so forth, because it's all agrarian culture at that time.

[11:12]

So, there was a kind of revolt of the people, and the Zen monks decided that work was part of their practice. So, the monasteries in China had their holdings of fields, and so the Zen monks would work in the fields. And Pai Chang, this famous Zen monk in China, when he was 98 or something like that, was still working in the fields, and his students took away his tools. They didn't want him to work too hard, but he stopped eating. And he said, a day of no work is a day of no eating, a very famous statement. So work practice has always been a very integral part of Zen practice.

[12:17]

And if you go to a monastery in Japan or China, well, not anymore in China, yeah, a little bit in China, but especially in Japan, the monks are always working all the time, cleaning, Monastery is always real clean. Everything is clean. And that has become a part of Japanese culture. So work practice is very important. And in our practice, we don't have a lot of time to work. Sometimes we have a work day, which and that is very nice. And then, of course, during Sashin we have work period, which is also very wonderful when you combine Zazen with work in the same environment.

[13:23]

It's a wonderful experience. And you can see how Zazen and work are the same. So, in your daily life, most of the time is spent in work. work as a generalized way. So to sit Zazen in the morning and then work and then sit Zazen in the evening is a kind of wonderful way to structure your day because it brings Zazen and daily life together as one thing. When coming to this zendo and sitting zazen and going out in the world and working become one thing, then you have true practice.

[14:39]

When there's fundamentally no difference, then you have true practice. So then another aspect is listening to the teacher's teisho, or lecture, we call it lecture. Lecture is usually about some subject. Teisho is more like the teacher's expressing understanding. So most of you have teisho. And the other side of that is for the student to come in dokasan, and ask questions about something in the Taisho or something in their study, or something about your daily life. Mostly, there's a variety of kinds of questions. Some people just talk about their daily life.

[15:44]

Now, there is a kind of dokasan, which is an interview with a teacher, which is based on koan study. That's more Rinzai style, where you have your koan, and you line up, and you ask the teacher, you express your understanding, the koan teacher rings the bell and tosses you out. Our dōkasan is based more on the model of dōgen, and his teacher, Rujing, in China. There's a fascicle called Hokkyoki, which is Dogen's exposition of questions he asked his teacher, Rujing, in Dokusan.

[16:47]

that were recorded by his student, Eijo, called the Hokioki. And Dogen asks questions and his teacher answers the questions. And this is more the style of our Dokusan. But Dogen's questions are based on his study and his trying to understand the Dharma. A lot of our questions are also done that way, but often we come just with questions about our life. So when someone comes to me with questions about their life, they want advice sometimes, or they want me to figure out their situation, or they just want to talk about their life, I try to help them see where the koan is in the question. to turn their questioning into insight, into the fundamental of their life.

[18:02]

So it's not just me answering questions. I don't like to answer people's questions that way, or to try to figure out their life situation for them. And it's not therapy. Although it is a kind of therapy, it's not psychotherapy. There's a difference between therapeutics and psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is done by a psychotherapist, sometimes by me, without portfolio, but I try to avoid that. The therapy of Zen, in an interview, is to help the student focus on their practice. always returning the student to their practice, how to deal with this as practice. If you deal with your problems as practice, then it's no longer the same kind of problem.

[19:11]

This is not just my problem, it's my practice problem. It's my problem of practice. And that puts it in a different dimension than just being victimized by your problem. How do I practice with this thing that I brought? So the teacher turns the question back, turns it around, revolves the question around, and turns it back to the student to deal with. When I would bring a question to my teacher, he would always just give me another problem. He'd say, and then he'd laugh, and he'd say, you came to me with a question and I've just given you another problem. And then he'd laugh. And I would laugh. Because it took the seriousness out of the problem, took the poison out of the problem.

[20:22]

Oh yes, then the other aspect is having a practice position. You know, the zendo runs through the participation of everyone. When we come to practice here, we feel that this place is already here and that we can come and practice. That's one side, but the other side is that when you come to practice, you are creating the practice. It's not that it existed before you came, In one sense, yes. But for you, it exists when you came.

[21:50]

It only arose when you came. And that you are creating the practice as well as being created by the practice. So, your active participation in making things work is what makes everything work. So each person who is a member of this practice takes a position, some position. It doesn't have to be a very responsible position, but it is a responsible position in that you're responsible for what you take on. So someone may just be working in the garden or have a position of taking care of the altar or sweeping the zendo. There are many small positions, but we take a position according to our ability to give our time, and then we rotate the positions so that you are actually turning the practice from your position.

[23:09]

and you are being turned by the practice. And each position we take, we see the practice from that position. So there are many different ways of viewing the practice and interacting with each other. And this is what makes everything work. So there's a certain responsibility that we have to everyone, and everyone has a responsibility to each person. Everyone has a responsibility to you, and you have a responsibility to everyone. And this is the interactive matrix which makes the whole thing work. So, in a sense, there's the horizontal view in which we're all exactly the same. And then there's the vertical view, in which each one has a different position.

[24:14]

And the axis of those two, where they meet, is big mind. So this is a very vital and important part of our practice. how we interact with each other, how we create the practice together, and the interconnectedness of everything that we do here. And the way that works illustrates the Buddhist understanding of all in one and one in all. Even though you have the smallest position, it contains the whole practice. And even though you have the smallest position, it moves the whole practice, and the whole practice depends on that.

[25:31]

And you take that out, and then the practice has to reconnoiter, to readjust itself to that part that's missing. So everyone's practice is valuable, totally valuable. So in our practice period, we try to renew our practice to include these characteristics.

[26:35]

And then as we practice throughout the year, things get loose and we forget things, and then we have another practice period to bring us back to what we're doing. So that's kind of the rhythm of our practice. And to maintain the rhythm is to maintain the practice. And to find the time to practice in your daily life, it may not be so easy for everyone. It's hard for a lot of people, but you do what you can. And when you do what you can with sincerity, then you have a complete practice. And over a long period of time, or over a period of time, your availability to practice changes,

[27:55]

Life goes through changes. You know, if you have a very steady practice, and your practice is, and that becomes the one thing in your life that doesn't change, then you see the ups and downs of your life on that scale. And then you realize something about your life, that you can see your life in a certain kind of perspective that you don't ordinarily see it. You see how everything comes and goes, and how your life of zazen remains steady. And this gives you a fundamental basis that you can always rely on when everything else is uncertain.

[29:13]

Did you have any questions? Maybe I'm not practicing.

[30:50]

Yeah, well, what are the fundamentals of practicing with anybody? I mean, you know, how can you not practice? I'm losing what you mean by the word at this moment. Yeah, well, say you go to work, you go to the lab and you go to work, and you're interacting with people, right? So that's work practice. If you think this is just work, then it's a little different than thinking this is work practice. What makes the difference between practice and not practice? Well, selflessness. Yeah, so you recognize selflessness around you, you recognize selfishness around you, and you recognize your own selflessness, and then you recognize your own selfishness, right?

[32:10]

There's more awareness of that. The awareness of that is practice. The awareness of when I'm doing something selflessly, when I'm doing something selfishly, that's practice. Awareness. Tell me where I'm missing when you said there's no merit for it.

[33:16]

Well, this is an interesting thing about merit. Basically, the giving away of merit is a Buddhist practice. At the end of our service, we always say, the merit collected thereby we offer to, but we're not offering something specifically to somebody, it's just like we're letting go of the merit and just it's like throwing out seeds. I described it not so much as collecting because when you collect In order not to have something, you have to give it away, right? So, collecting and giving away is one way of thinking about it. The other way, the way I was expressing it, was not collecting it, but simply letting it go through, so that, you know, it's maybe like a dynamo or something, or something spinning,

[34:34]

and it induces and then it releases, more like that. You know, the Tibetan prayer wheels, they have a lot of prayer wheels and you go along and you turn them, keep turning them, and they're turning and they're collecting something, they're expressing the sutra or the thought. So it's not, it's just the way you think about it. One more question. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Right. Well, the basis of our precepts is compassion, and if you simply act compassionately, like I'm going to act compassionately, then whatever circumstance you're in, how do I do it here?

[36:12]

How do I do it now? When I'm walking across the street, well, how do I do it now? So you keep that in as the basis, and it doesn't mean you won't get into trouble or you won't have some big problem, but if you keep that in mind it creates a form for your practice, because you know what's going to happen pretty much in the It's all set up. You walk in and you bow, and this creates an atmosphere. But when you're out there in the world, you have to create the forms. You have to find the form. You have to do the dance. That's really a good point, because anything can become, any incident, any problem can become a vehicle for practice, and everything you meet is a vehicle for practice.

[38:03]

So how do you turn that wheel?

[38:06]

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