This is seventh day, last day of Sashin. So I want to remind all of us that it's not over yet. When we start coming to the end, you know, it's easy to relax or to say, well, pretty soon. So anticipation, could be our problem right about now. Please don't fall, get attached to your anticipation. Let's see the sashin through to the very end with the same spirit that we've done this all along. We just go up to the last minute.

[01:04]

Then, when sasheen is over, it's over. But until then, it's still sasheen. This afternoon, we'll do a show song. question and answer, so please think about some question to ask me. Yesterday, I said that today I would talk about non-discrimination. So I have a little story that I want to tell you about to illustrate one aspect of non-discrimination.

[02:13]

Do you know, I think some of you must know the story of Hakuin Zenji. When Hakuin lived in the 17th century and He was a very famous Zen master who revived the Rinzai school, which was dying in his time, and developed the present koan system that the Rinzai school uses. I don't know whether the story about him is really true or not, but the story is that one day there was a young girl who got pregnant. And when her parents asked her who was it that helped her do that, she said, she went up to Haku and she said, it was him.

[03:19]

And the father came up to Haku and he said, you, blah, blah, blah, And Hakuin said, is that so? And then later, when the girl had the baby, the father took the baby and gave it and said, this is yours. Hakuin said, is that so? So Hakuin brought up the baby. He fed it, clothed it, and for a couple of years, I don't know how long, some short period of time, and was quite content to do it, and just completely did it. People, also his reputation went down, as you can imagine,

[04:27]

But he just continued to take care of the baby. So after a while, when things had settled a little bit, the girl went to her father and told him the truth. And so the father came back to Hakuin and told him the story. And Paco would say, oh, is that so? Gave back the baby to the girl. And went about his business. I don't know if I have to say anything more about non-discrimination.

[05:30]

But... Sometimes we have the idea that non-discrimination means not to pick and choose. Originally, our life is one piece with everything. But how we experience it is as broken up into little pieces and pretty hard for us to see because of the little pieces

[06:53]

that our life is really one piece. The life of everything is one piece. In the Heart Sutra, Heart Sutra says, all five skandhas in their own being are empty. no own being to five skandhas. Five skandhas are form, feelings, conceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. And the sutra says so. And the sutra says, in emptiness, No form, no feelings, no conceptions, no mental formations, no consciousness.

[08:01]

No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. But we say, well, I have a nose. I have eyes. I have ears. What is this no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind? no four noble truths. Emptiness, a synonym for emptiness is interdependence. That's why the Sutra says, in their own being, The skandhas are empty in their own being. It means each skandha has no inherent existence, but is dependent on everything else for its existence.

[09:08]

So emptiness is the space in which everything can come and go. and at the same time is the coming and going and is the interdependence and is the stillness and is completely indescribable. So on this This makes all things one piece, because everything is completely interdependent with everything else and has no independent existence. Our whole Dharmadhatu is just one piece, one pulsating piece of seemingly independent entities.

[10:12]

So within this oneness is great multiplicity. So multiplicity is oneness and oneness is multiplicity. This is our dual understanding or our understanding of two is one and one is two. or not one, not two. So within oneness is duality, and within duality is oneness. If you fall into either oneness or duality, That's radical duality. But in order to look at the two sides of our one nature, we talk about oneness and we talk about duality, and we talk about discrimination and non-discrimination, and we talk about form and we talk about emptiness.

[12:08]

But if we get stuck on one side or the other, then we have discrimination. So our mind is always falling into discrimination. And when we sit in zazen, we come to great stillness. but within the stillness is a great dynamic activity. It's like, zazen is like a, Kata Giriroshi always described it as a spinning top. When you look at a well-spinning top, it looks like it's standing still. It looks like the top is just standing still. But if you touch it, it goes pew! And its activity is so well balanced and so harmonious that it looks like nothing's happening.

[13:23]

This is zazen. In zazen, each one of us is a dynamically spinning top. great dynamic total activity within stillness. And then when we get up and go out into the world, there's just moving around and complications. It's called the realm of complications. But within the realm of complications, is stillness. Stillness is the base. When we go out into the world after today, into the realm of complications, we should be aware of

[14:28]

keeping our calm, still mind in the midst of all complications. This is our practice. Just the other side. So there's no coming and going, actually. looks like we come to sasheen and it's one kind of activity, and then we go out again and stop, but there is no stopping. If you see the world of complications as different from the world of sasheen, that's falling into discrimination. Even though the activities are different, it's the same practice, back and forth.

[15:43]

A well-accomplished Zen student should be able to come and go without any problem. Sit seven days and go out into the world with no problem. Just take up whatever comes and deal with circumstances as they arise. When we sit in Sashin for seven days, we get very sensitive to how we meet circumstances. We become very careful and alert to circumstances as they arise. And without calling something up, or without trying to produce something, we just remain ready, open and ready for what's next.

[16:58]

This is our activity. The activity of this spinning top is just to be completely open for whatever. And in the world of complications, same. If you can keep that kind of mind, it's not a special state of mind. We're not looking for a special state of mind, just open and unassuming and ready for anything. And when something comes, we just deal with it. with a non-discriminating mind. Suzuki Roshi used to say, when you get enlightened and you pass the ice cream store, the feeling for wanting to go in and eat the ice cream will still come up, even after you're enlightened.

[18:14]

And if you like, you may go in and order chocolate ice cream, because that's what you like. But the person behind the counter may say, we only have vanilla. So maybe you take vanilla, and then when you're eating the vanilla, maybe you say, oh, I like this just as much as the chocolate. Or even though I don't like this just as much as the chocolate, vanilla is wonderful. Chocolate's chocolate, vanilla's vanilla. So, we're always picking and choosing, but what is our picking and choosing based on?

[19:51]

This is the important point. It's like our body has two hands, left hand and right hand. So, here's the duality of left and right. But left and right belong to the same body. They both grow out of the same root. But sometimes the left hand thinks that it's independent from the right hand, and the right hand thinks it's independent from the left hand. but actually right hand and left hand go together, and when they work, they work together. If the right hand tries to do something, thinks of itself in some way as independent from the left hand, too independent, then they can't work together.

[20:59]

So left hand and right hand If you're right-handed, your right hand feels more competent than your left hand. So maybe it's easy for a right hand to feel some egotistical feeling because it can do something more competently than the left hand. The left hand maybe serves the right hand. And if you're left-handed, the left hand is more competent, and the right hand serves the left hand, but they make an agreement and they know how to work together, hopefully. But maybe they don't. Maybe they don't work together so well. But when each one knows how to take its place with the other, No problem.

[22:02]

So, if the left hand and right hand know how to work together, then automatically the right hand does the right thing and the left hand does the right thing. And when you tie a bow, they work together. It's nice. But, In our life, all of us are the fingers of the right hand or the left hand. And when we meet a situation, how do we act in that situation? Whenever we meet is the other side of ourself. But we don't always recognize that whatever we meet is the other side of ourself. And if we know how to fall into place, sometimes moving forward, sometimes holding back, sometimes being aggressive, sometimes being passive, but knowing what to do,

[23:26]

on every moment, in every situation, comes from a non-discriminating mind. Problems, most of our problems with relationships, and when I say relationships, I mean with everything that we meet. come from a discriminating mind. Mind which sees, doesn't see the unity of all things. So when we see how things are one whole being, then our discrimination is no longer discrimination, or it's discrimination of non-discrimination.

[24:34]

Wasn't he a teacher? Yeah, but they're two different things. One is to say something to help people. The other is to not say something to help people. So you have to know the appropriate action in a situation. If you use the same action in every situation, you cause big problems.

[25:59]

So there's an appropriate time to do something, but if you see that that thing works and you try to use it in every situation, you just cause myriad problems. There's a story about that, but I can't remember it. Too bad, because it's a good story. Well, the appropriate response, the right response has to fit the situation, whether you're thinking about it or not. If you see somebody putting six tablespoons of salt when they should be putting six teaspoons of salt, you should knock the thing out of his hand before he gets it in there, right? If you have to.

[27:02]

But it's not an offense against you. So you save beings from salt in one way, too much salt, and you save abandoned babies in another way. The mother was worried about her boyfriend, the father was worried about the family reputation, and Hakuna was just worried about the baby. The point is that he wasn't worried about himself.

[28:07]

There's a point in practice where you just have to stop worrying about yourself. This is a major point. This is the most important thing, actually. At some point, you just have to stop worrying about yourself. Then you can do something. Until you stop worrying about yourself, you can't really, you're not free. We're always going out on one limb or another, and the point is to be grounded in emptiness, or to be grounded in unification, and from there

[29:31]

you go in various directions. But you never lose that grounding. Don't ever lose it. That's, you're sitting all the time. That's what you're sitting is. Whether you're sitting or walking or sleeping or whatever, you're grounded in what? It. Yeah, he deliberately made a mistake. We all make big mistakes. Right, but what did you mean by the four truths?

[30:53]

He made them? I understand what you're saying. What was the mistake? It was a big mistake. Well, what I'm saying is that he made this statement, this Four Truths, and it sounds like he got the Great Assembly, and he picked out compassion and sanctity of mind. Not to worship him, not to believe in him, because then that would be like a mystery. What we have to do is find that for us. He can't save us. We have to find out ourselves. I agree with what you're saying. I just don't understand what you mean by the mistake. What I'm saying is he made that statement. I'm wondering whether he made that statement in order to show us the statement of the Four Noble Truths.

[31:54]

In order to show us that by practicing with compassion we can find out through our experience of the truth, which is the opposite of what I said. He said there is suffering, and Alligator said there isn't. Oh, I see. Well, in the same way that you have no eyes and ears, but you do. Right, okay. Even though the Four Noble Truths are empty, it doesn't mean there are no Four Noble Truths. Even though eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind are empty of own being, doesn't mean there are no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, so forth. No here means yes.

[32:56]

Within no is yes, and within yes is no. If you see no as only no, that's falling into duality. So the sutra is coming from the side of non-duality. So when the sutra says, no eyes, no ears, no nose, it also means there are eyes, there are ears, there is a nose. But from the point of view of duality, we just see an eyes, ears, nose, but we don't see from the other side that there are no eyes, no ears, no nose in emptiness, in reality. So we are always falling into discrimination. so ah

[34:14]

I hope that we can all continue our practice after this sasheen in a truthful way. And our real practice is out there in the world. sometimes with clear mind and sometimes with confusion. But within clarity and confusion, we still have correct practice, truthful life, even though sometimes it's very clear, sometimes very confused. But within our clarity, there's always some problem. And within our problem, there's always some clarity.

[35:43]

That's very important practice. Don't get discouraged. Problems are really our opportunity for clarity.

[35:59]

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